VII
[“Seven blind of both eyes]
When the King found that his money was nearly all
gone, and that he really must live more economically, he
decided on sending away most of his Wise Men. There
were some hundreds of them—very fine old men, and
magnificently dressed in green velvet gowns with gold
buttons: if they had a fault, it was that they always contradicted
one another when he asked for their advice—and
they certainly ate and drank enormously. So, on the
whole, he was rather glad to get rid of them. But there
was an old law, which he did not dare to disobey, which
said that there must always be
“Seven blind of both eyes:
Two blind of one eye:
Four that see with both eyes:
Nine that see with one eye.”
(Query. How many did he keep?)
