great surprise, when he called aloud, the King could not speak a word, but could only whistle. He put up his hand to his face to feel what was the matter with his voice, but of course he could not feel anything about his voice. He did, however, observe, very much to his annoyance, that his royal aquiline nose had quite disappeared, that his mouth now extended quite across his face, that his ears were small and almost gone into his head, and that for a forehead nothing remained but a wide, round expanse, which he could easily dent with his thumb. In short, he resembled, to the touch at least, although, of course, he could not see himself, nothing in the world so much as a large, soft, rubber ball, hollow and inflated, and with legs and arms attached. 100 When the King realized this and found also that his voice was gone, a sudden fear fell upon him. "My soul and body!" thought he to himself, "can this be true? If so, I am in the worst sort of a situation, for no one will recognize me!" So saying, he sank down upon the ground near the palace door, and after a number of bounces up and down at last settled into an attitude of Deep Thought. After the King had thought for quite a time, he happened to look upon the ground before him. To his great 101surprise, there was no shadow there. He had not known that all along it had been the intention of the Wicked Fairy to steal his shadow. Such, however, had been the case. While the King was at the top of one of his highest bounds, the Wicked Fairy, who had remained upon the ground below, took the opportunity to remove his shadow from beneath him; so that after that the King cast no shadow at all. Just how this was done it is hard to say. Perhaps the Chemist, Aurelius Pickle, who knew many strange things, could have told how this occurred, but he, being dead, could not be asked. It may be that as the King was stretched out to thrice his natural height, he was thrice his natural thinness, and that the shadow also became three times as thin, and so was easy to take away. In any case, certainly the Wicked Fairy had removed the King's shadow, and, of course, with it the White Cricket which had always lived in that shadow. When the King looked down and saw what had happened, he fell back in a deep swoon of terror. 101 For a moment all was still; then there came from somewhere off in the distance, the doleful tones of the Enchanted Banjo. 102THE SORROWFUL SONG OF THE SHADOWLESS KING
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