Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia Part 4

The upholsterer undid his parcel, and there was a Persian rug, which no one could tell from the magical carpet.

The hatter was fumbling with the string of his parcel, when he suddenly remembered, what the king in his astonishment had not noticed, that he had a cap on himself. He pulled it off in a hurry, and the king at once saw that it was his Wis.h.i.+ng Cap, and understood all about the affair. The hatter, in his absence, had tried on the Wis.h.i.+ng Cap, and had wished that he himself and his friends were all at home and back again with their wares at the palace. And what he wished happened, of course, as was natural. In a moment the king saw how much talk this business would produce in the country, and he decided on the best way to stop it.

Seizing the Wis.h.i.+ng Cap, he put it on, wished all the tradesmen, including the shoemaker, back in the town at their shops, and also wished that none of them should remember anything about the whole affair.

In a moment he was alone in the turret-room. As for the shopkeepers, they had a kind of idea that they had dreamed something odd; but, as it went no further, of course they did not talk about it, and n.o.body was any the wiser.

"Owl that I am!" said King Prigio to himself. "I might have better wished for a complete set of sham fairy things which would not work. It would have saved a great deal of trouble; but I am so much out of the habit of using the cap, that I never thought of it. However, what I have got will do very well."

Then, putting on the Cap of Darkness, that n.o.body might see him, he carried all the _real_ fairy articles away, except the Seven-league Boots, to his own room, where he locked them up, leaving in their place the sham Wis.h.i.+ng Cap, the sham Cap of Darkness, the sham Sword of Sharpness, and the carpet which was not a magic carpet at all.

His idea was, of course, that Ricardo would start on an expedition confiding in his fairy things, and he would find that they did not act.

Then he would be left to his own cleverness and courage to get him out of the sc.r.a.pe. That would teach him, thought the king, to depend on himself, and to set a proper value on cleverness and learning, and minding his book.

Of course he might have locked the things up, and forbidden Ricardo to touch them, but that might have seemed harsh. And, as you may easily imagine, with all the powers at his command, the king fancied he could easily rescue Ricardo from any very serious danger at the hands of giants or magicians or monsters. He only wanted to give him a fright or two, and make him respect the judgment of older and wiser people than himself.

CHAPTER IV.

Two Lectures.

{The Prince with the telescope: p64.jpg}

For several days Prince Ricardo minded his books, and, according to his tutors, made considerable progress in polite learning. Perhaps he ought not to be praised too highly for this, because, in fact, he saw no means of distinguis.h.i.+ng himself by adventures just at that time. Every morning he would climb the turret and sweep the horizon, and even _much_ beyond the horizon, with the ivory spy-gla.s.s. But look as he would, he saw no monsters preying on human-kind anywhere, nor princesses in distress. To be sure he saw plenty of poor people in distress, and, being a good-hearted, though careless, lad, d.i.c.k would occasionally fly off with the Purse of Fortunatus in his pocket, and give them as much money as they needed--it cost him nothing. But this was not the kind of adventure which he enjoyed. Dragons for his money!

One day the Princess Jaqueline took a curious plan of showing Ricardo how little interest, after all, there is in performing the most wonderful exploits without any real difficulty or danger. They were drifting before a light breeze on a hill lake; Ricardo was fis.h.i.+ng, and Jaqueline was sculling a stroke now and then, just to keep the boat right with the wind. Ricardo had very bad sport, when suddenly the trout began to rise all over the lake. d.i.c.k got excited, and stumbled about the boat from stern to bow, tripping over Jaqueline's feet, and nearly upsetting the vessel in his hurry to throw his flies over every trout he saw feeding.

{Drifting in a light breeze: p66.jpg}

But, as too often occurs, they were taking one particular fly which was on the water, and would look at nothing else.

"Oh, bother them!" cried Ricardo. "I can't find a fly in my book in the least like that little black one they are feeding on!"

He tried half-a-dozen different fly-hooks, but all to no purpose; he lost his temper, got his tackle entangled in Jaqueline's hair and then in the landing-net; and, though such a big boy, he was nearly crying with vexation.

The Princess Jaqueline, with great pains and patience, disentangled the casting line, first from her hair, which Ricardo was anxious to cut (the great stupid oaf,--her pretty hair!) then from the landing-net; but d.i.c.k had grown sulky.

"It's no use," he said; "I have not a fly that will suit. Let's go home," and he threw a tin can at a rising trout.

"Now, d.i.c.k," said Jaqueline, "you know I can help you. I did not learn magic for nothing. Just you look the other way for a minute or two, and you will find the right fly at the end of your line."

d.i.c.k turned his head away (it is not proper to look on at magical arts), and then in a moment, saw the right hook on his cast; but Jaqueline was not in the boat. She had turned herself into an artificial fly (a small black gnat), and d.i.c.k might set to his sport again.

"What a trump that girl is," he said aloud. "Clever, too!" and he began casting. He got a trout every cast, great big ones, over a pound, and soon he had a basketful. But he began to feel rather bored.

"There's not much fun taking them," he said, "when they are so silly."

At that very moment he noticed that the fly was off his cast, and Jaqueline was sitting at the oars.

"You see, Ricardo," she said, "I was right after all. There is not much pleasure in sport that is easy and certain. Now, apply this moral to dragon-killing with magic instruments. It may be useful when one is obliged to defend oneself, but surely a prince ought not to give his whole time to nothing else!"

d.i.c.k had no answer ready, so he only grumbled:

"You're always preaching at me, Jack; everybody always is. I seem to have been born just to be preached at."

Some people are; and it does grow rather tedious in the long run. But perhaps what Jaqueline said may have made some impression on Ricardo, for he stuck to his books for weeks, and was got into decimal fractions and Euclid.

All this, of course, pleased the king very much, and he began to entertain hopes of Ricardo's becoming a wise and learned prince, and a credit to his ill.u.s.trious family.

Things were not always to go smoothly, far from it; and it was poor Jaqueline who fell into trouble next. She had been very ready to lecture d.i.c.k, as we saw, and took a good deal of credit to herself for his steadiness. But one day King Prigio happened to meet Jaqueline's maid, Rosina, on the stairs; and as Rosina was a pretty girl, and the king was always kind to his dependents, he stopped to have a chat with her.

"Why, Rosina, what a pretty little silver cross you are wearing," he said, and he lifted a curious ornament which hung from a chain on Rosina's neck. It consisted of seven drops of silver, set like this:

{The drops: p72.jpg}

"May I look at it?" his Majesty asked, and Rosina, all in a flutter, took it off and gave if to him. "H'm!" said the king. "Very curious and pretty! May I ask you where you got this, Rosina?"

{"H'm!" said the king. "Very curious and pretty!": p73.jpg}

Now Rosina generally had her answer ready, and I am very sorry to say that she did not always speak the truth when she could think of anything better. On this occasion she was anxious to think of something better, for fear of getting Jaqueline into a sc.r.a.pe about the chemical experiment in her bedroom. But Rosina was fluttered, as we said, by the royal kindness, and she could think of nothing but to curtsy, and say:

"Please, your Majesty, the princess gave me the drops."

"Very interesting," said the king. "There is a little white moon s.h.i.+ning in each of them! I wonder if they s.h.i.+ne in the dark?"

He opened the door of a cupboard which had no windows, where the housemaid kept her mops and brooms, and shut himself in. Yes, there was no mistake; the darkness was quite lighted up with the sheen of the seven little moons in the silver. The king looked rather grave.

"If you can trust me with this cross till to-morrow, Rosina, I should like to have it examined and a.n.a.lysed. This is no common silver."

Of course Rosina could only curtsy, but she was very much alarmed about the consequences to her mistress.

After luncheon, the king asked Jaqueline to come into his study, as he often did, to help him with his letters. When they had sat down his Majesty said:

"My dear Jaqueline, I never interfere with your pursuits, but I almost doubt whether _Cornelius Agrippa_ is a good book for a very young lady to read. The Fairy Paribanou, I am sure, taught you nothing beyond the ordinary magical accomplishments suited to your rank; but there are a great many things in the _Cornelius_ which I think you should not study till you are older and wiser."

"What does your Majesty mean?" said poor Jaqueline, feeling very uncomfortable; for the king had never lectured her before.

"Why," said his Majesty, taking the silver cross out of his pocket, "did you not give this to Rosina?"

"Yes, sire, I did give her the drops. She had them made up herself."

"Then give it back to her when you see her next. I am glad you are frank, Jaqueline. And you know, of course, that the drops are not ordinary silver? They are moon silver, and that can only be got in one way, so far as I know, at least--when one spills the water when he, or she, is drinking the moon. Now, there is only one book which tells how that can be done, and there is only one reason for doing it; namely, to find out what is some other person's secret. I shall not ask you _whose_ secret you wanted to find out, but I must request you never to do such a thing again without consulting me. You can have no reason for it, such as a great king might have whose enemies are plotting against his country."

"Oh, sire, I will tell you everything!" cried Jaqueline.

"No, don't; I don't want to know. I am sure you will make no use of your information which you think I should not approve of. But there is another thing--that eclipse of the moon! Oh, Jaqueline, was it honourable, or fair to the astronomers and men of science, to say nothing about it? Their European reputations are seriously injured."