Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia: Being the Adventures of Prince Prigio's Son

CHAPTER III.

The Adventure of the Shopkeepers

Dick went on with his breakfast. He ate cold pastry, and poached eggs, and ham, and rolls, and raspberry jam, and hot cakes; and he drank two cups of coffee. Meanwhile the king had joined the tradesmen who attended by his orders. They were all met in the royal study, where the king made them a most splendid bow, and requested them to be seated. But they declined to sit in his sacred presence, and the king observed that, in that case he must stand up.

“I have invited you here, gentlemen,” he said, “on a matter of merely private importance, but I must request that you will be entirely silent as to the nature of your duties. It is difficult, I know, not to talk about one’s work, but in this instance I am sure you will oblige me.”

“Your Majesty has only to command,” said Herr Schnipp. “There have been monarchs, in neighbouring kingdoms, who would have cut off all our heads after we had done a bit of secret business; but the merest word of your Majesty is law to your loving subjects.”

The other merchants murmured assent, for King Prigio was really liked by his people. He was always good-tempered and polite. He never went to war with anybody. He spent most of the royal income on public objects, and of course there were scarcely any taxes to speak of. Moreover, he had abolished what is called compulsory education, or making everybody go to school whether he likes it or not; a most mischievous and tyrannical measure! “A fellow who can’t teach himself to read,” said the king, “is not worth teaching.”

For all these reasons, and because they were so fond of the queen, his subjects were ready to do anything in reason for King Prigio.

Only one tradesman, bowing very deep and blushing very much, said:

“Your Majesty, will you hear me for one moment?”

“For an hour, with pleasure, Herr Schmidt,” said the monarch.

“It is an untradesman-like and an unusual thing to decline an order; and if your Majesty asked for my heart’s blood, I am ready to shed it, not to speak of anything in the line of my business – namely, boot and shoe making. But keep a secret from my wife, I fairly own to your Majesty that I can not.”

Herr Schmidt went down on his knees and wept.

“Rise, Herr Schmidt,” said the king, taking him by the hand. “A more honourable and chivalrous confession of an amiable weakness, if it is to be called a weakness, I never heard. Sir, you have been true to your honour and your prince, in face of what few men can bear, the chance of ridicule. There is no one here, I hope, but respects and will keep the secret of Herr Schmidt’s confession?”

The assembled shopkeepers could scarcely refrain from tears.

“Long live King Prigio the Good!” they exclaimed, and vowed that everything should be kept dark.

“Indeed, sire,” said the swordmaker, “all the rest of us are bachelors.”

“That is none the worse for my purpose gentlemen,” said his Majesty; “but I trust that you will not long deprive me of sons and subjects worthy to succeed to such fathers. And now, if Herr Schmidt will kindly find his way to the buttery, where refreshments are ready, I shall have the pleasure of conducting you to the scene of your labours.”

Thus speaking, the king, with another magnificent bow, led the way upstairs to a little turret-room, in a deserted part of the palace. Bidding the tradesmen enter, he showed them a large collection of miscellaneous things: an old cap or two, a pair of boots of a sort long out of fashion, an old broadsword, a shabby old Persian rug, an ivory spy-glass, and other articles. These were, in fact, the fairy presents, which had been given to the king at his christening, and by aid of which (and his natural acuteness) he had, in his youth, succeeded in many remarkable adventures.

The caps were the Wishing Cap and the Cap of Darkness. The rug was the famous carpet which carried its owner through the air wherever he wished to go. The sword was the Sword of Sharpness. The ivory glass showed you anyone you wanted to see, however far off. The boots were the Seven-league Boots, which Hop-o’-my-Thumb stole from the Ogre about 1697. There were other valuable objects, but these were the most useful and celebrated. Of course the king did not tell the tradesmen what they were.

“Now, gentlemen,” said his Majesty, “you see these old things. For reasons which I must ask you to excuse me for keeping to myself, I wish you to provide me with objects exactly and precisely similar to these, with all the look of age.”

The tradesmen examined the objects, each choosing that in his own line of business.

“As to the sword, sire,” said the cutler, “it is an Andrea Ferrara, a fine old blade. By a lucky accident, I happen to have one at home in a small collection of ancient weapons, exactly like it. This evening it shall be at your Majesty’s disposal.”

“Perhaps, Herr Schnitzler, you will kindly write an order for it, as I wish no one of you to leave the palace, if you can conveniently stay, till your business is finished.”

“With pleasure, your Majesty,” says the cutler.

“As to the old rug,” said the upholsterer, “I have a Persian one quite identical with it at home, at your Majesty’s service.”

“Then you can do like Herr Schnitzler,” who was the cutler.

“And I,” said the hatter, “have two old caps just like these, part of a bankrupt theatrical stock.”

“We are most fortunate,” said the king.

“The boots, now I come to think of it, are unimportant, at least for the present. Perhaps we can borrow a pair from the theatre.”

“As for the glass,” said the optician, “if your Majesty will allow me to take it home with me – ”

“I am afraid I cannot part with it,” said the king; “but that, too, is unimportant, or not very pressing.”

Then he called for a servant, to order luncheon for the shopkeepers, and paper for them to write their orders on. But no one was within hearing, and in that very old part of the palace there were no bells.

“Just pardon me for an instant, while I run downstairs,” said his Majesty; “and, it seems a strange thing to ask, but may I advise you not to sit down on that carpet? I have a reason for it.”

In fact, he was afraid that someone might sit down on it, and wish he was somewhere else, and be carried away, as was the nature of the carpet.

King Prigio was not absent a minute, for he met William on the stairs; but when he came back, there was not one single person in the turret-room!

“Where on earth are they?” cried the king, rushing through all the rooms in that part of the castle. He shouted for them, and looked everywhere; but there was not a trace of tailor, hatter, optician, swordmaker, upholsterer.

The king hastened to a window over the gate, and saw the sentinels on duty.

“Hi!” he called.

And the sentinels turned round, looked up, and saluted.

“Have you seen anyone go out?” he cried.

“No one, sire,” answered the soldiers.

The king, who began to guess what had happened, hurried back to the turret-room.

There were all the tradesmen with parcels under their arms.

“What means this, gentlemen?” said his Majesty, severely. “For what reason did you leave the room without my permission?”

They all knelt down, humbly imploring his compassion.

“Get up, you donkeys!” said the king, forgetting his politeness. “Get up, and tell me where you have been hiding yourselves.”

The hatter came forward, and said:

“Sire, you will not believe me; indeed, I can scarcely believe it myself!”

“Nor none of us can’t,” said the swordmaker. “We have been home, and brought the articles. All orders executed with punctuality and dispatch,” he added, quoting his own advertisement without thinking of it.

On this the swordmaker took out and exhibited the Andrea Ferrara blade, which was exactly like the Sword of Sharpness.

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 Wishing Cap, and understood all about the affair. The hatter, in his absence, had tried on the Wishing 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 Wishing 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 nobody 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 nobody 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 Wishing 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 scrape. 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

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 distinguishing 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-glass. 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, Dick 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 fishing, 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. Dick 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.

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 Dick 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, Dick,” 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.”

Dick 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 Dick 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!”

Dick 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 illustrious 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 Dick, 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:

“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?”

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 scrape 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 shining in each of them! I wonder if they shine 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 analysed. 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.”

Poor Jaqueline could only cry.

“Never mind,” said his Majesty, comforting her. “There is no great harm done yet, and perhaps they would not believe you if you did explain; but just think, if some people ceased to believe in Science, what would they have left to believe in? But you are young, of course, and cannot be expected to think of everything.”

“I never thought about it at all,” wept Jaqueline.

“‘Evil is wrought by want of thought,’” said the king, quoting the poet. “Now run away, dry your tears, and I think you had better bring me that book, and I’ll put it back in one of the locked-up shelves. Later, when you are older, we shall see about it.”

The princess flew to her room, and returned with her book. And the king kissed her, and told her to go and see if her Majesty meant to take a drive.

“I’ll never deceive him again, never.. unless it is quite necessary,” said the princess to herself. “Indeed, it is not so easy to deceive the king. What a lot he has read!”

In fact, King Prigio had been very studious when a young man, before he came to the throne.

“Poor child!” thought the king. “No doubt she was trying her fortune, wondering if Ricardo cares for her a little. Of course I could not let her tell me that, poor child!”

In this guess, as we know, his Majesty was mistaken, which seldom happened to him.

“I wonder who she is?” the king went on speaking to himself. “That great booby, Ricardo, saved her from wild birds, which were just going to eat her. She was fastened to a mountain top, but where? that’s the question. Ricardo never has any notion of geography. It was across the sea, he noticed that; but which sea, – Atlantic, Pacific, the Black Sea, the Caspian, the Sea of Marmora, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, the German Ocean, the Mediterranean? Her ornaments were very peculiar; there was a broad gold sun on her breast. I must look at them again some day. She said she was being sacrificed to wild birds (which her people worshipped), because there was some famine, or war, or trouble in the country. She said she was a Daughter of the Sun; but that, of course, is absurd, unless – By Jove! I believe I have it,” said the king, and he went into the royal library and was looking for some old Spanish book, when his secretary came and said that the Russian Ambassador was waiting for an interview with his Majesty.

“Dismal old Muscovite!” sighed the king. “A monarch has not a moment to himself for his private studies. Ah, Prigio! why wert thou not born to a private station? But Duty before everything,” and wreathing his royal countenance in smiles, his Majesty prepared to give Count Snoreonski an audience.

It was all about the attitude of Pantouflia in the event of a Polish invasion of Russia. The king reassured Count Snoreonski, affirming that Pantouflia, while deeply regretting the disturbed relations between two States in whose welfare she was deeply interested, would ever preserve an attitude of benevolent neutrality, unless her own interests were threatened.

“I may give your message to my august mistress, the Czarina?” said the ambassador.

“By all means, adding an expression of my tender interest in her Majesty’s health and welfare,” said the king, presenting the count at the same time with a magnificent diamond snuffbox containing his portrait.

The old count was affected to tears, and withdrew, while King Prigio said:

“I have not lost a day; I have made an amiable but very stupid man happy.”

Such are, or rather such were, the toils of monarchs!

CHAPTER V.

Prince Ricardo Crosses the Path of History

“I say, Jack,” said Prince Ricardo one morning, “here’s a queer letter for me!”

King Prigio had gone to a distant part of his dominions, on business of importance, and the young people were sitting in the royal study. The letter, which Ricardo handed to Jaqueline, was written on a great broad sheet of paper, folded up without any envelope, as was the custom then, and was sealed with a huge seal in red wax.