The dull work went tediously on.  Petitions were read, and
proclamations, patents, and all manner of wordy, repetitious, and
wearisome papers relating to the public business; and at last Tom sighed
pathetically and murmured to himself, “In what have I offended, that the
good God should take me away from the fields and the free air and the
sunshine, to shut me up here and make me a king and afflict me so?”
  Then his poor muddled head nodded a while and presently drooped to his
shoulder; and the business of the empire came to a standstill for want
of that august factor, the ratifying power.