p.

"Thank you. You've no idea how difficult it is to talk on four legs
to somebody higher up. It strains the neck so."

There was an awkward silence. Nobody quite knew what to say.

Except Belvane.

She turned to Udo with her most charming smile. "Did you have a
pleasant journey?" she asked sweetly.

"No," said Udo coldly.

"Oh, do tell us what happened to you?" cried Hyacinth. "Did you meet
some terrible enchanter on the way? Oh, I am so dreadfully sorry."

When one is not feeling very well there is a certain type of question
which is always annoying.

"Can't you _see_ what's happened to me?" said Udo crossly. "I don't
know _how_ it happened. I had come two days' journey from Araby,
when----"

"Please, your Royal Highness," said Wiggs, "is this _your_ tail in the
salt?" She took it out, gave it a shake, and handed it back to him.

"Oh, thank you, thank you--two days' journey from Araby when I woke up
one afternoon and found myself like this. I ask you to imagine my
annoyance. My first thought naturally was to return home and hide
myself; but I told myself, Princess, that _you_ wanted me."

The Princess could not help being touched by this, said as it was with
a graceful movement of the ears and a caressing of the right whisker,
but she wondered a little what she would do with him now that she had
got him.

"Er--what _are_ you?" put in Belvane kindly, knowing how men are
always glad to talk about themselves.

Udo had caught sight of a well-covered table, and was looking at it
with a curious mixture of hope and resignation.

"Very, very hungry," he said, speaking with the air of one who knows.

The Princess, whose mind had been travelling, woke up suddenly.

"Oh, I was forgetting my manners," she said with a smile for which the
greediest would have forgiven her. "Let us sit down and refresh
ourselves. May I present to your Royal Highness the Countess
Belvane."

"Do I shake hands or pat him?" murmured that mistress of Court
etiquette, for once at a loss.

Udo placed a paw over his heart and bowed profoundly.

"Charmed," he said gallantly, and coming from a cross between a lion,
a rabbit, and a woolly lamb the merest suggestion of gallantry has a
most pleasing effect.

They grouped themselves round the repast.

"A little sherbet, your Royal Highness?" said Hyacinth, who presided
over the bowl.

Udo was evidently longing to say yes, but hesitated.

"I wonder if I dare."

"It's v