But thou, whence intrudest thou into my realm of Lineland?"
Receiving this abrupt reply, I begged pardon if I had in any way
startled or molested his Royal Highness; and describing myself
as a stranger I besought the King to give me some account of his dominions.
But I had the greatest possible difficulty in obtaining any information
on points that really interested me; for the Monarch could not refrain
from constantly assuming that whatever was familiar to him must also
be known to me and that I was simulating ignorance in jest.
However, by preserving questions I elicited the following facts:
It seemed that this poor ignorant Monarch--as he called himself--
was persuaded that the Straight Line which he called his Kingdom,
and in which he passed his existence, constituted the whole of the world,
and indeed the whole of Space. Not being able either to move or to see,
save in his Straight Line, he had no conception of anything out of it.
Though he had heard my voice when I first addressed him, the sounds
had come to him in a manner so contrary to his experience that he had
made no answer, "seeing no man," as he expressed it, "and hearing
a voice as it were from my own intestines.
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