The other had never looked in a book;
His patients gave him no trouble:
If they recovered they paid him well;
If they died their heirs paid double.
Together they looked at the royal tongue,
As the King on his couch reclined;
In succession they thumped his august chest,
But no trace of disease could find.
The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut."
"Hang him up," roared the King in a gale--
In a ten-knot gale of royal rage;
The other leech grew a shade pale;
But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose,
And thus his prescription ran--
_The King will be well if he sleeps one night
In the Shirt of a Happy Man_.
* * * * *
Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode,
And fast their horses ran,
And many they saw, and to many they spoke,
But they found no Happy Man....
They saw two men by the roadside sit,
And both bemoaned their lot;
For one had buried his wife, he said,
And the other one had not.
At last they came to a village gate,
A beggar lay whistling there!
He whistled and sang, and laughed and rolled
On the grass in the soft June air.
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