The Prince with the telescope

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

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:

The drops

“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!”

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!