Chapter 7 - Page 2

"The lad has come to some purpose and forethought," the king said, and he gladly advanced a considerable sum for the purchase of crocodiles' eggs, which can rarely be got quite fresh. When Jaqueline had made the crocodiles' eggs, with millet-seed and sugar-candy, into a cake for the Dwarf's lions, Ricardo announced that his preparations were complete.

Not to be the mere slave of custom, he made this expedition on horseback, and the only magical thing he took with him was the Cap of Darkness (the one which would not work, but he did not know that), and this he put in his pocket for future use. With plenty of egg sandwiches and marmalade sandwiches, and cold minced-collop sandwiches, he pricked forth into the wilderness, making for the country inhabited by the Yellow Dwarf. The princess was glad he was riding, for she privately accompanied him in the disguise of a wasp; and a wasp, of course, could not have kept up with him in his Seven-league Boots.

"Hang that wops!" said Prince Ricardo several times, buffeting it with his pocket-handkerchief when it buzzed in his ear and round his horse's head.

Meanwhile, King Prigio had taken his precautions, which were perfectly simple. When he thought Ricardo was getting near the place, the king put on his Wishing Cap, sat down before the magic crystal ball, and kept his eye on the proceedings, being ready to wish the right thing to help Ricardo at the right moment. He left the window wide open, smoked his cigar, and seemed the pattern of a good and wise father watching the conduct of a promising son.

The prince rode and rode, sometimes taking up Pepper on his saddle; passing through forests, sleeping at lonely inns, fording rivers, till one day he saw that the air was becoming Yellow. He knew that this showed the neighbourhood of Jaunia, or Daunia, the country of the Yellow Dwarf. He therefore drew bridle, placed his rose-coloured spectacles on his nose and put spurs to his horse, for the yellow light of Jaunia makes people melancholy and cowardly. As he pricked on, his horse stumbled and nearly came on its nose. The prince noticed that a steel chain had been drawn across the road.

"What caitiff has dared!" he exclaimed, when his hat was knocked off by a well-aimed orange from a neighbouring orange-tree, and a vulgar voice squeaked:

"Hi, Blinkers!"

There was the Yellow Dwarf, an odious little figure, sitting sucking an orange in the tree, swinging his wooden shoes, and grinning all over his wrinkled face.

"Well, young Blinkers!" said the Dwarf, "what are you doing on my grounds? You're a prince, by your look. Yah! down with kings! I'm a man of the people!"

"You're a dwarf of the worst description, that's what you are," said Ricardo; "and let me catch you, and I'll flog the life out of you with my riding-whip!"

The very face of