did not include the great quantity of embassies despatched by sovereigns who were unable to present themselves in person and so compromised, as Gorton says, by sending in persons with presents.

1

2

Of the many who called, so Talmud relates in his diaries, comparatively few were chosen. A rigid inspection was in force at the outer portals and only those who were sufficiently gifted might hope to gain further admittance, a special apartment being set aside for the purpose over the door of which was written:

"Give up all gifts here, all ye who enter.
For the consolation of such as were turned away
Balkis graciously consented to exhibit herself once
a day at the great balcony, a practice which she
was obliged to continue by popular request, in spite
of the large number of suicides which followed
daily after this manifestation of her forbidden
charms.

"The face that kills," as someone termed it.
As for the other more fortunate ones, the same

1 Even the aged Shush saw fit to count himself among the latter,
and the Queen's reply to his presumptuousness has become historic.
"Keep your little grey dome in the West," she sent him back

word.

'Diaries of a Court Physician, tablet 206.

routine was observed for all. Each was ushered into the audience chamber and given five minutes in which to state his claims to consideration while Balkis observed him closely through a jeweled At the end of that time the latter was raised and the suppliant was permitted to view the Queen for a brief instant. Many of them are reported to have dropped dead on the spot at the sight of so much loveliness.

screen.

The ones who survived were apprised of their fate in the following manner. In the case of those she disliked Balkis simply pressed a button, whereupon they disappeared forthwith through a trapdoor in the floor. Those on the other hand whom she wished to honor further with her company received a marble slab, presentation of which at the entrance entitled them to participation in her midnight receptions, on which were inscribed the words, "Balkis, long may she reign!" from which they became known as Reign Checks.

5

No complete catalogue of her innumerable suitors is necessary, or even available, but among them two individuals stand out and deserve a special mention.

The first, Pilaster of Pharos, a charming youth in his very early twenties, seems to have made an immediately favorable impression on the Queen by spending his entire original five minutes going about the audience chamber petting her cats.1

"Your time is up!" Balkis warned him when the screen was lifted.2

"High time, as you might say," he murmured. "How about my number?"

"You're pretty fresh," she observed.

"Fresh every hour," he agreed. "But oh me, oh meow!"

"What?"

"I wish I were a cat."

"Why?"

"Because the cat came back!"

Needless to say he did not disappear through the floor, the Queen having, as Gorton puts it, kept her trap shut, but received his slab and went on his way rejoicing.

"Marbelous, marbelous!" he exclaimed as he retired, and Balkis tittered.

'Aside from that he appears to have been a humorist. He had brought along a large quantity of grass which he distributed to the delighted animals, remarking as he did so that he realized it was catnip and tuck with him, and that the least he could do was to say it with flavors. "Annals of Sheba, cylinder 7562.

Her diaries are full of glowing references to him.

1

66

"Pilaster is a very dear and fetching young man," she writes at one time, "and he has such a sweet way of expressing himself. His mouth is always wide open, and he has something quite beautiful to say whenever he gets a chance to speak, and he is so good to me, you really have no idea! He is very handsome, and such a good spender, and, I expect, frightfully expensive to his parents." Once more elsewhere she says he is so very, very fresh, and gets so gay with me and everything, and always has some bold, delightfully wicked thing to say, even at breakfast. He really is so pleasant to have about the house, as I always think that a man who is obliging at breakfast is a rare bird. I know that I'm not good for anything myself until I've had my morning chocolate, but I think that Pilaster talks more then than at any other time. Of course I'm thinking of things to say as soon as I've finished my cup so that it's not as though I were not doing my share."

From another entry it appears that ". . . I do so love him, and from the few things that he has said I feel sure that he means business, although he

1 Suitors, vol. 165.

to

ng

a

is

"te

doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve, he's not that kind. But a woman can always tell somehow when a man is really interested, and I know that he has been trying to say something for some time. I almost dread it because I feel that it will put an end to our perfect friendship, but of course what must be must be."

And then he went away.

Pilaster disappeared one morning and never came back. Talmud relates that he sold all his camels and went to Aphasia. A year later Balkis herself says:1

"That low-down pup Pilaster, who used to hang around here so much, has come home. They tell me his hair has turned completely blue. I have heard of that happening before, of course, but never so rapidly. It serves him right, the big stiff!" 2

6

The second suitor, Colossus of Rhodes, was an entirely different sort of person. He was nine feet high and extremely hairy, with enormous limbs and 1Suitors, vol. 316, left handed.

'Gorton has a cock and bull story to the effect that it was not Pilaster's hair that turned blue but his face, and that it happened before he went away as a result of the Queen's incurable talkativeness, but this is probably just a myth.