A DISTINGUISHED¹ Advocate of Republican Institutions was seen
pickling his shins in the ocean.

  "Why don't you come out on dry land?" said the Spectator.  "What
are you in there for?"

  "Sir," replied the Distinguished Advocate of Republican
Institutions, "a ship is expected, bearing His Majesty² the King of
the Fly-Speck Islands, and I wish to be the first to grasp the
crowned hand."

  "But," said the Spectator, "you said in your famous speech before
the Society for the Prevention of the Protrusion³ of Nail Heads from
Plank⁴ Sidewalks that Kings were blood-smeared oppressors and hell-
bound loafers."

  "My dear sir," said the Distinguished Advocate of Republican
Institutions, without removing his eyes from the horizon, "you
wander away into the strangest irrelevancies!  I spoke⁵ of Kings in
the abstract."

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