hen a Fairy overheard him. So she appeared in front of him and said,
"I believe you are the King?"

"I am the King," said Merriwig. "I am the King, I am the----"

"And yet," said the Fairy, "what is a King after all?"

"It is a very powerful thing to be a King," said Merriwig proudly.

"Supposing I were to turn you into a--a small sheep. Then where would
you be?"

The King thought anxiously for a moment.

"I should like to be a small sheep," he said.

The Fairy waved her wand.

"Then you can be one," she said, "until you own that a Fairy is much
more powerful than a King."

So all at once he was a small sheep.

"Well?" said the Fairy.

"Well?" said the King.

"Which is more powerful, a King or a Fairy?"

"A King," said Merriwig. "Besides being more woolly," he added.

There was silence for a little. Merriwig began to eat some grass.

"I don't think much of Fairies," he said with his mouth full. "I
don't think they're very powerful."

The Fairy looked at him angrily.

"They can't make you say things you don't want to say," he explained.

The Fairy stamped her foot.

"Be a toad," she said, waving her wand. "A nasty, horrid, crawling
toad."

"I've _always_ wanted--" began Merriwig--"to be a toad," he ended from
lower down.

"Well?" said the Fairy.

"I don't think much of Fairies," said the King. "I don't think
they're very powerful." He waited for the Fairy to look at him, but
she pretended to be thinking of something else. After waiting a
minute or two, he added, "They can't make you say things you don't
want to say."

The Fairy stamped her foot still more angrily, and moved her wand a
third time.

"Be silent!" she commanded. "And stay silent for ever!"

There was no sound in the forest. The Fairy looked at the blue sky
through the green roof above her; she looked through the tall trunks
of the trees to the King's castle beyond; her eyes fell upon the
little glade on her left, upon the mossy bank on her right . . . but
she would not look down to the toad at her feet.

No, she wouldn't. . . .

She _wouldn't_. . . .

And yet----

It was too much for her. She could resist no longer. She looked at
the nasty, horrid, crawling toad, the dumb toad at her feet that was
once a King.

And, catching her eye, the toad--_winked_.

Some winks are more expressive than others. The Fairy knew quite well
what this one meant. It meant:

"I don't think much of Fairies. I don't thi