“What was it?” asked Trot.

“It was a stomach ache,” replied the King with a sigh.

“What made it?” she inquired.

“Just my carelessness,” said Anko.  “I’d been away to foreign parts, seeing how the earth people were getting along.  I found the Germans dancing the german and the Dutch making dutch cheese and the Belgians combing their belgian hares and the Turks eating turkey and the Sardinians sardonically pickling sardines.  Then I called on the Prince of Whales, and—­”

“You mean the Prince of Wales,” corrected Trot.

“I mean what I say, my dear.  I saw the battlefield where the Bull Run but the Americans didn’t, and when I got to France I paid a napoleon to see Napoleon with his boney apart.  He was—­”

“Of course you mean—­” Trot was beginning, but the king would not give her a chance to correct him this time.

“He was very hungry for Hungary,” he continued, “and was Russian so fast toward the Poles that I thought he’d discover them.  So as I was not accorded a royal welcome, I took French leave and came home again.”

“But the pain—­”

“On the way home,” continued Anko calmly, “I was a little absent-minded and ate an anchor.  There was a long chain attached to it, and as I continued to swallow the anchor I continued to eat the chain.  I never realized what I had done until I found a ship on the other end of the chain.  Then I bit it off.”

“The ship?” asked Trot.

“No, the chain.  I didn’t care for the ship, as I saw it contained some skippers.  On the way home the chain and anchor began to lie heavily on my stomach.  I didn’t seem to digest them properly, and by the time I got to my palace, where you will notice there is no throne, I was thrown into throes of severe pain.  So I at once sent for Dr. Shark—­”

“Are all your doctors sharks?” asked the child.

“Yes, aren’t your doctors sharks?” he replied.

“Not all of them,” said Trot.

“That is true,” remarked Cap’n Bill.  “But when you talk of lawyers—­”

“I’m not talking of lawyers,” said Anko reprovingly.  “I’m talking about my pain.  I don’t imagine anyone could suffer more than I did with that stomach ache.”

“Did you suffer long?” inquired Trot.

“Why, about seven thousand four hundred and eighty-two feet and—­”

“I mean a long time.”

“It seemed like a long time,” answered the King.  “Dr. Shark said I ought to put a mustard poultice on my stomach, so I uncoiled myself and summoned my servants, and they began putting on the mustard plaster.  It had to be bound all around me so it wouldn’t slip off, and I began to look like an express package.  In about four weeks fully one-half of the pain had been covered by the mustard poultice, which got so hot that it hurt me worse than the stomach ache did.”

“I know,” said Trot.  “I had one, once.”

“One what?” asked Anko.