“They all died,” he answered with royal simplicity.

“Then your Majesty’s humane intervention,” I said, “was not entirely—­well, fattening?”

“The fortune of war,” said the King, gravely, looking over my head to signify that the interview was at an end; and I retired from the Presence on hands and feet, as is the etiquette in that country.

As soon as I was out of hearing I threw a stone in the direction of the palace and said:  “I never in my life heard of such a cold-blooded scoundrel!”

In conversation with the King’s Prime Minister, the famous Grumsquutzy, I asked him how it was that Ug, being a great military power, was apparently without soldiers.

“Sir,” he replied, courteously shaking his fist under my nose in sign of amity, “know that when Ug needs soldiers she enlists them.  At the end of the war they are put to death.”

“Visible embodiment of a great nation’s wisdom,” I said, “far be it from me to doubt the expediency of that military method; but merely as a matter of economy would it not be better to keep an army in time of peace than to be compelled to create one in time of war?”

“Ug is rich,” he replied; “we do not have to consider matters of economy.  There is among our people a strong and instinctive distrust of a standing army.”

“What are they afraid of,” I asked—­what do they fear that it will do?”

“It is not what the army may do,” answered the great man, “but what it may prevent others from doing.  You must know that we have in this land a thing known as Industrial Discontent.”

“Ah, I see,” I exclaimed, interrupting—­“the industrial classes fear that the army may destroy, or at least subdue, their discontent.”

The Prime Minister reflected profoundly, standing the while, in order that he might assist his faculties by scratching himself, even as we, when thinking, scratch our heads.

“No,” he said presently; “I don’t think that is quite what they apprehend—­they and the writers and statesmen who speak for them.  As I said before, what is feared in a case of industrial discontent is the army’s preventive power.  But I am myself uncertain what it is that these good souls dislike to have the army prevent.  I shall take the customary means to learn.”

Having occasion on the next day to enter the great audience hall of the palace I observed in gigantic letters running across the entire side opposite the entrance this surprising inscription: 

“In a strike, what do you fear that the army will prevent which ought to be done?”