But in courtly phrase, as beseemed him, Babbalanja, turban in hand,
thus spoke:--

"My concern is extreme, King Yoky, at the embarrassment into which
your island is thrown. Nor less my grief, that I myself am not the
man, to put an end to it. I could weep that Comparative Anatomists are
not so numerous now, as hereafter they assuredly must become; when
their services shall be in greater request; when, at the last, last
day of all, millions of noble and ignoble spirits will loudly clamor
for lost skeletons; when contending claimants shall start up for one
poor, carious spine; and, dog-like, we shall quarrel over our own
bones."

Then entered dwarf-stewards, and major-domos; aloft bearing twisted
antlers; all hollowed out in goblets, grouped; announcing dinner.

Loving not, however, to dine with misshapen Mardians, King Media was
loth to move. But Babbalanja, quoting the old proverb--"Strike me in
the face, but refuse not my yams," induced him to sacrifice his
fastidiousness.

So, under a flourish of ram-horn bugles, court and company proceeded
to the banquet.

Central was a long, dislocated trunk of a wild Banian; like a huge
centipede crawling on its hundred branches, sawn of even lengths for
legs. This table was set out with wry-necked gourds; deformities of
calabashes; and shapeless trenchers, dug out of knotty woods.

The first course was shrimp-soup, served in great clamp-shells; the