seriously.

And Manuel got clay and modeled a figure which had the features and the
holy look of King Ferdinand.

"Yes, this young fellow you have made of mud is something like me," the
King conceded, "although clay of course cannot do justice to the fine
red cheeks and nose I used to have in the unregenerate days when I
thought about such vanities, and, besides, it is rather more like you.
Still, Count, the thing has feeling, it is wholesome, it is refreshingly
free from these modern morbid considerations of anatomy, and it does you
credit."

"No, King, I like this figure well enough, now that it is done, but it
is not, I somehow know, the figure I desire to make. No, I must follow
after my own thinking and my own desires, and I do not need holiness."

"You artists!" the King said. "But there is more than mud upon your
mind."

"In fact, I am puzzled, King, to see you made a saint of by its being
expected of you."

"But, Count, that ought to grieve nobody, so long as I do not complain,
and it is of something graver you are thinking."

"I think, sir, that it is not right to rob anybody of anything, and I
reflect that absolute righteousness is a fine feather in one's cap."

Then Manuel went into the chicken-yard behind the red-roofed palace of