Royal Command [A playful manuscript story involving Ants]

perhaps the 1950s?. Paperback. Good. Green wraps, quite worn (front wrap detached;) bound with yellow ribbon, ink and gouache illustration of a horse mounted to bottom corner of front cover; oblong (217 x 174 mm); contains 21 alternating leaves of tissue (with text handwritten in green) and heavy cardstock (illustrated in ink and gouache), all appearing on the recto only. Total of 11 full-page original ink and goache illustrations, a few signed, tho difficult to decipher (appears to be "Erni"). Covers a bit creased, primarily along yapp edges; internally fine. A children's story with antimonarchist undertones, in which an Ant King organizes his worker ants to retrieve food for the kingdom, and meets a humiliating end. The artwork is adept, and wonderfully and whimsically carried out -- the perfect compliment to the jocularity of the tale.