us may be averted."

While the sparrow thus spoke, Caliph raised his head slowly out of the water. Seven times did he open and close his enormous mouth. At length, in a voice that rang throughout the Menial World, he spoke as follows:

"Harken unto me, all ye Menial People. As to the first monkey, it was in this wise: When the first man had been made, his shadow fell upon some very poor clay that had been thrown away. And it came to pass that when the first man walked, and his shadow walked after him, the poor clay upon which the shadow rested rose and ran shrieking into the forest. And, lo! it was a monkey. Behold, I have spoken."

When Caliph had sunk beneath the water again, Pwit-Pwit, with his head on one side, listened eagerly for the comments of the other Menial People, and Toots, with his hand placed warningly on the Princess, listened, too. First, Mahmoud trumpeted his acquiescence:

"It is true. I heard it from my father in the Jungle one day when these insolent chatterers were particularly annoying. The monkeys are but as chips that fall from the hewn log."

"Behold, Caliph's words are the words of wisdom," said Sultan, patriarch of the lions, in his deepest roar. "I, who was born in the shadow of the great pyramids, had it from my father, who had it from the father of Caliph when he went down to the Nile to drink. Lo! the monkeys are as the chaff when the wheat is winnowed."