bottle."

"Is the fellow mad?" bawled the king, raising the point of his sword.

"I will put a stopper--plug--what you call it, in your leaky lake,
grand monarch," said the prince.

The king was in such a rage that before he could speak he had time to
cool, and to reflect that it would be great waste to kill the only man
who was willing to be useful in the present emergency, seeing that in
the end the insolent fellow would be as dead as if he had died by his
majesty's own hand. "Oh!" said he at last, putting up his sword with
difficulty, it was so long; "I am obliged to you, you young fool! Take
a glass of wine?"

"No, thank you," replied the prince.

"Very well," said the king. "Would you like to run and see your parents
before you make your experiment?"

"No, thank you," said the prince.

"Then we will go and look for the hole at once," said his majesty, and
proceeded to call some attendants.

"Stop, please your majesty; I have a condition to make," interposed the
prince.

"What!" exclaimed the king, "a condition! and with me! How dare you?"

"As you please," returned the prince coolly. "I wish your majesty a
good morning."

"You wretch! I will have you put in a sack, and stuck in the hole."

"Very well, your majesty," replied the prince, becoming a little more
respectful, lest the wrath of the king should deprive him of the
pleasure of dying for the princess. "But what good will that do your
majesty? Please to remember that the oracle says the victim must offer
himself."

"Well, you _have_ offered yourself," retorted the king.

"Yes, upon one condition."

"Condition again!" roared the king, once more drawing his sword.
"Begone! Somebody else will be glad enough to take the honour off your
shoulders."

"Your majesty knows it will not be easy to get another to take my
place."

"Well, what is your condition?" growled the king, feeling that the
prince was right.

"Only this," replied the prince: "that, as I must on no account die
before I am fairly drowned, and the waiting will be rather wearisome,
the princess, your daughter, shall go with me, feed me with her own
hands, and look at me now and then, to comfort me; for you must confess
it _is_ rather hard. As soon as the water is up to my eyes, she may go
and be happy, and forget her poor shoeblack."

Here the prince's voice faltered, and he very nearly grew sentimental,
in spite of his resolution.

"Why didn't you tell me before what your con