joyful to be true."

"I don't see anything funny about it," remarked Trot
indignantly.

"You would if you'd had my experience," said Pessim,
getting upon his feet and gradually resuming his solemn
and dissatisfied expression of countenance.

The same thing happened to me."

"Oh, did it? And how did you happen to come to this
island?" asked the girl.

"I didn't come; the neighbors brought me," replied the
little man, with a frown at the recollection. "They said
I was quarrelsome and fault-finding and blamed me because
I told them all the things that went wrong, or never were
right, and because I told them how things ought to be. So
they brought me here and left me all alone, saying that
if I quarreled with myself, no one else would be made
unhappy. Absurd, wasn't it?"

"Seems to me," said Cap'n Bill, "those neighbors did
the proper thing."

"Well," resumed Pessim, "when I found myself King of
this island I was obliged to live upon fruits, and I
found many fruits growing here that I had never seen
before. I tasted several and found them good and