A KING WHO WANTED FRESH AIR.

Not long ago there was terrible excitement at the royal court of Annam. The king, Thanh Tai, who is now fourteen years old, was missing. Etiquette requires that the Annamese king shall never leave the royal grounds. He is a kingly prisoner.

But the young potentate was not hard to find. Though he was a king, he was a boy; and it is natural for a boy, when he has some money in his pocket, to want to go out and spend it.

That was exactly what the King of Annam had done. Entirely alone, he had started on a “shopping” expedition through the streets of Hue. Of course, no one knew him, because he had never shown his face in public. He was simply a boy, like any boy; and this was exactly what he wanted.

But he was treated with great respect by the shopkeepers, because he seemed to have plenty of money. Curiously enough, the thing which seemed to attract him most was a head-shearing machine, or hair clipper, and when the frightened nobles of the court discovered him at last, it was with this singular implement in his possession.

He had already begun to experiment with it on the heads of several small street boys, who were proving rebellious subjects, when the courtiers approached him, prostrating themselves upon the ground, and making alarmed outcries.

The king no longer goes out shopping, but he retains his hair clipper as a souvenir of a happy day of freedom with the street boys.