Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia | Page 9

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.
{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 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.
{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