'Why did he want to see the Queen?' asked Jane.
'Mice,' replied Mary Poppins calmly. 'And partly for Old Sake's Sake.'
A faraway look came into her eyes and the hands on the ball of wool fell idle. Jane flung a warning glance at Michael. He wriggled cautiously out of bed and crept across the room. Mary Poppins took no notice. She was gazing thoughtfully out of the window with distant dreamy eyes.
'Once upon a time,' she began slowly, as though she were reading from the sheet of sunlight….
Once upon a time, there lived a King who thought he knew practically everything. I couldn't even begin to tell you the things he thought he knew. His head was as full of facts and figures as a pomegranate of pips. And this had the effect of making the King extremely absent-minded. You will hardly believe me when I say that he even forgot his own name, which was Cole. The Prime Minister, however, had an excellent memory, and reminded him of it from time to time.
Now, this King's favourite pursuit was thinking. He thought all night and he thought in the morning. He thought at mealtimes, he thought in his bath. He never noticed what was happening in front of his nose because, of course, he was always thinking about something else.
And the things he thought about were not, as you might imagine, the welfare of his people and how to make them happy. Not at all. His mind was busy with other questions. The number of baboons in India, for instance; and whether the North Pole was as long as the South; and if pigs could be taught to sing.
He not only worried about these things himself. He forced everybody else to worry about them, too. All except the Prime Minister, who was not at all a thinking kind of person but an old man who liked to sit in the sun and do absolutely nothing. But he was careful not to let this be known for fear the King would cut off his head.
The King lived in a palace made entirely of crystal. In the early days of his reign it had shone so brightly that passers-by would hide their eyes, for fear of being dazzled. But gradually the crystal grew duller and the dust of the seasons covered its brightness. Nobody could be spared to polish it for everyone was far too busy helping the King think his thoughts. At any moment they might be ordered to leave their work and hurry away on the King's business. To China, perhaps, to count the silkworms. Or to find out if the Solomon Islands were ruled by the Queen of Sheba. When they came back with their lists of facts, the King and the courtiers would write them down in large books bound in leather. And if anyone returned without an answer, his head was at once cut off.
The only person in the palace who had nothing to do was the Queen. All day long she sat on her golden throne, twisting the necklace of blue-and-green flowers that was clasped about her throat. Sometimes she would start up with a cry and pull her ermine robes about her. For the palace, as it grew more and more dirty, became infested with mice. And mice, as anyone will tell you, are the things no Queen can stand.
'O-o-o-h!' she would say, with a little gasp, as she leapt on the seat of the throne.
And each time she cried out the King would frown.
'Silence please!' he would say, in a fractious voice, for the least little noise disturbed his thinking. Then the mice would scatter for a little while and no sound would be heard in the room. Except for the scratching of goose- quill pens as the King and the courtiers added new facts to the ones in the leather books.
The Queen never gave orders, not even to her Ladies-of-the-Bedchamber. For as likely as not the King would countermand them.
'Mend the Queen's petticoat?' he would say crossly. 'What petticoat? Why waste time talking about petticoats? Take a pen and write out these facts about the Phoenix!'
What a dreadful state of affairs, you will say! And, indeed, I wouldn't blame you. But you must not think it was always like that. The Queen, sitting lonely upon her throne, would often remind herself of the days when she first had married the King. How tall and handsome he had been, with his strong white neck and ruddy cheeks, and locks of hair folded round his head like the leaves of camellia flowers.
'Ah!' she would sigh, remembering back. How he had fed her with honey-cakes and fingers of buttered bread from his plate. How his face had been so full of love that her heart would turn over in her breast and force her to look away, for sheer joy.
But at last there came a fateful evening.
'Your eyes are brighter than stars,' he said, as he glanced from her face to the shining sky. But instead of turning to her again as usual, he continued to gaze upwards.
'I wonder,' he said dreamily, 'just how many stars there are! I think I shall count them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—' And he went on counting till the Queen fell asleep beside him.
'One thousand, two hundred and forty-nine—' he was saying as she woke up.
And after that he would not be satisfied till he got the courtiers out of their beds and set them to counting stars. And as no two answers came out alike the King was very angry.
That was how it all began.
The next day, the King exclaimed, 'Your cheeks, my Darling, are like two roses!'
And the Queen was very happy till he added, 'But why roses? Why not cabbages? Why are cheeks pink and cabbages green? And vice versa? This is a very serious question.'
The third day he told her that her teeth were like pearls. But before she even had time to smile, he went on —
'And what if they are? Everybody has, after all, a certain number of teeth, and most of them are pearly. Pearls themselves, however, are very rare. It is more important to think about them.'
So he summoned the best divers in the kingdom and sent them down under the sea.
And from that day onwards he was always thinking. He was only concerned with gaining knowledge and he never even looked at the Queen. Indeed, if he had glanced in her direction, he would probably not have seen her, for he worked so hard at his books and papers that he soon became very short-sighted. His round red face grew thin and wrinkled, and his hair turned grey at an early age. He ate practically nothing — except for a cheese-and-onion sandwich whenever the old Prime Minister told him that dinner was on the table.
Well! You can imagine how lonely the Queen was. Sometimes the Prime Minister would shuffle cautiously to the throne and pat her hand kindly. Sometimes the little page who filled the inkwells would raise his eyes and smile at her from behind the King's back. But neither the old man nor the boy could spare much time to amuse the Queen, for fear of losing their heads.
You must not think the King meant to be unkind. Indeed, it seemed to him that his subjects were luckier than most, for hadn't they a King who knew practically everything? But while he was busy gathering knowledge his people grew poorer and poorer. Houses fell into ruin and fields went untilled, because the King needed all the men to help him in his thinking.
At last there came a day when the King and the courtiers were busy, as usual, at their desks in the Council Chamber. The Queen sat listening to the scratching of pens and the squeaking of mice in the wainscot. And presently, as she sat so still, a bold mouse streaked across the floor and began to wash its whiskers right under the throne. The Queen gave a little frightened gasp. But she quickly clapped her hand to her mouth for fear of disturbing the King. Then she pulled her ermine train about her and sat trembling within it. And at that moment, over the edge of her hand, her startled eyes glanced across the room and saw on the threshold — a cat.
A small cat it was, as fluffy as a dandelion, and white as sugar from tail to whisker. It walked with a lazy swinging step as though it had nothing at all to do and all time to do it in. A pair of green eyes glowed in its head as it sauntered through the door.
For a moment it paused at the carpet's edge, glancing curiously at the King and the courtiers as they bent above their books. Then the green eyes turned towards the Queen. The Cat gave a start and its body stiffened. Up went its back like the hump of a camel. Its whiskers stretched into threads of steel. Then it leapt across the Council Chamber and dived beneath the throne. There was a hoarse cat-cry. And a smothered squeak. And the mouse was there no longer.
'Silence, please! Don't make such extraordinary noises, my dear! They interrupt my thoughts!' said the King fractiously.
'It wasn't me,' said the Queen timidly. 'It was a Cat.'
'Cats?' said the King absent-mindedly, without even lifting his head. 'Cats are four-footed creatures covered with fur. They eat mice, fish, liver and birds and communicate either in a purr or a caterwaul. They keep themselves to themselves and are popularly supposed to possess nine lives. For further information on Cats, see Page Two, Volume Seven, Shelf D in Library Number Five to the left as you go in the door. Here! Hi! What's all this—?'
