Violetta," exclaimed the prince, "what shall I do
with this pestiferous caitiff, who minds neither hanging nor
drowning?" And thereupon the fairy, who doubtless heard his
adjuration, inspired him with a lucky thought. Knowing that the little
caitiff was but a man of straw, animated by the wicked enchanter, he
at once resolved to take advantage of that circumstance.

"Ho-ho! ha-hah! are you there, my friend?" replied the prince. "Well,
I see there is no use in quarreling with such a pleasant fellow. Come,
sit down, and take a puff with me, and let us swear eternal
friendship."

"Agreed!" replied the little caitiff, briskly. "It is true you played
a joke or two on me, but I flatter myself, on the whole, I paid you
beforehand; and for the present the account is pretty well balanced."

So they sat down and smoked very sociably together, talking about
various matters, until the little caitiff's cigar being burnt to a
stump, and somewhat incommoding his long nose, he began turning and
twisting it about, until it set fire to some blades of straw that
projected from his nostrils, which straight-way communicated to his
head, and thence to his body, and in a moment he was in full blaze.

"I am a gone sucker!" exclaimed he, and the words were scarcely out of
his mouth when, he became nothing but a heap of black ashes.

"Ho-ho! ha-hah!" quoth the prince, "if he is a gone sucker, I take it
for granted, it is all Dicky with Master Whipswitchem." And then,
himself and his horse being sufficiently refreshed, he mounted and
rode forward on his journey.

Ascending a high, wearisome hill, he saw at a little distance a great
and magnificent castle, which he at once took for that of the
enchanter Curmudgeon. The crisis of his fate was then at hand; and
after inspecting his armor and equipments, the prince spurred on
briskly to consummate his destiny. A few moments brought him to a
tower, at the end of a draw-bridge, where hung an enormous bell,
which, without hesitating a moment, he rung till it resounded far and
near. Instantly at the sound there rose up from the inner side, a
monstrous and deformed giant, upward of sixteen feet high. As he
advanced, he seemed all body and no legs--the latter being utterly
disproportioned to the former; his shoulders rose like mountains, one
higher than the other, almost to the top of his head; his body was all
over covered with impenetrable scales like an alligator, and he wore
on his head an old C