'What is this?' said the emperor. 'The nightingale? Why, I know nothing
about it. Is there such a bird in my kingdom, and in my own garden into
the bargain, and I have never heard of it? Imagine my having to
discover this from a book?'

Then he called his gentleman-in-waiting, who was so grand that when any
one of a lower rank dared to speak to him, or to ask him a question, he
would only answer 'P,' which means nothing at all.

'There is said to be a very wonderful bird called a nightingale here,'
said the emperor. 'They say that it is better than anything else in all
my great kingdom! Why have I never been told anything about it?'

'I have never heard it mentioned,' said the gentleman-in-waiting. 'It
has never been presented at court.'

'I wish it to appear here this evening to sing to me,' said the emperor.
'The whole world knows what I am possessed of, and I know nothing about
it!'

'I have never heard it mentioned before,' said the gentleman-in-waiting.
'I will seek it, and I will find it!' But where was it to be found? The
gentleman-in-waiting ran upstairs and downstairs and in and out of all
the rooms and corridors. No one of all those he met had ever heard
anything about the nightingale; so the gentleman-in-waiting ran back to
the emperor, and said that it must be a myth, invented by the writers of
the books. 'Your imperial majesty must not believe everything that is
written; books are often mere inventions, even if they do not belong to
what we call the black art!'