d contriving, Papa."

"Where is the magic fish-bone?"

"In my pocket, Papa."

"I thought you had lost it?"

"O, no, Papa."

"Or forgotten it?"

"No, indeed, Papa."

After that, she ran up-stairs to the Duchess and told her what had passed,
and told her the secret over again, and the Duchess shook her flaxen curls
and laughed with her rosy lips.

[Illustration]

Well! and so another time the baby fell under the grate. The seventeen
young Princes and Princesses were used to it, for they were almost always
falling under the grate or down the stairs, but the baby was not used to
it yet, and it gave him a swelled face and a black eye. The way the poor
little darling came to tumble was, that he slid out of the Princess
Alicia's lap just as she was sitting in a great coarse apron that quite
smothered her, in front of the kitchen-fire, beginning to peel the turnips
for the broth for dinner; and the way she came to be doing that was, that
the King's cook had run away that morning with her own true love who was a
very tall but very tipsy soldier. Then, the seventeen young Princes and
Princesses, who cried at everything that happened, cried and roared. But
the Princess Alicia (who couldn't help crying a little herself) quietly
called to them to be still, on account of not throwing back the Queen
up-stairs, who was fast getting well, and said, "Hold your tongues, you
wicked little monkeys, every one of you, while I examine baby!" Then she
examined baby, and found that he hadn't broken anything, and she held
cold iron to his poor dear eye, and smoothed his poor dear face, and he
presently fell asleep in her arms. Then, she said to the seventeen Princes
and Princesses, "I am afraid to lay him down yet, lest he should wake and
feel pain, be good, and you shall all be cooks." They jumped for joy when
they heard that, and began making themselves cooks' caps out of old
newspapers. So to one she gave the salt-box, and to one she gave the
barley, and to one she gave the herbs, and to one she gave the turnips,
and to one she gave the carrots, and to one she gave the onions, and to
one she gave the spice-box, till they were all cooks, and all running
about at work, she sitting in the middle smothered in the great coarse
apron, nursing baby. By and by the broth was done, and the baby woke up
smiling like an angel, and was trusted to the sedatest Princess to hold,
while the other Princes and Princesses were squeezed into a far-off c