of complaint. He simply straddled the donkey and took the fiddle under
his arm and rode out into the world to seek his fortune.

When he came to a village he played a merry tune upon the fiddle and
sang a merry song with it, and the people gave him food most
willingly. There was no trouble about a place to sleep, for if he was
denied a bed he lay down with the donkey in a barn, or even on the
village green, and making a pillow of the donkey's neck he slept as
soundly as anyone could in a bed of down.

And so he continued riding along and playing upon his fiddle for many
years, until his head grew bald and his face was wrinkled and his
bushy eyebrows became as white as snow. But his eyes never lost their
merry twinkle, and he was just as fat and hearty as in his younger
days, while, if you heard him singing his songs and scraping upon the
old fiddle, you would know at once his heart was as young as ever.

He never guided the donkey, but let the beast go where it would, and
so it happened that at last they came to Whatland, and entered one day
the city where resided the King of that great country.

Now, even as Cole rode in upon his donkey the King of Whatland lay
dying in his palace, surrounded by all the luxury of the court. And as
he left no heir, and was the last of the royal line, the councilors
and wise men of Whatland were in a great quandary as to who should
succeed him. But finally they bethought themselves of the laws of the
land, and upon looking up the records they found in an old book a law
that provided for just such a case as this.

"If the King dies," so read the law, "and there be no one to succeed