cap had only given
him a headache. He pulled it out of his doublet and looked at it.

Yes, it was a fine cap. But Raymond had got to feel such a dislike of
it that, had he owned another, he would have thrown this away. But it
would never do to make his entrance into London bareheaded.

'But why should I go to London at all?' Raymond asked himself. 'I
don't really want to be a king: I only like to think about being one.
Shall I go back to the Brindled Cow and Rosamund? Yes, I will!' And
with that he got up, put on his cap, and took two or three steps in
the direction of Honeymead.

'But what an ass I should be,' he said, stopping short, 'to turn back
at the very gates of London! Besides, it is too late to get back to
Honeymead to-night. I won't return before to-morrow. Something may
happen after all.'

He faced about once more towards London.

'It is an odd thing,' he remarked to himself as he went along, 'how I
keep changing my mind first one way and then another. Why is it? It
used not to be so when I was in Honeymead. It almost seems as if I
were not the same fellow; or as if I were sometimes myself, and
sometimes somebody else. I believe there must be something of that
kind the matter with me,' he continued after a while. 'Look how those
courtiers treated me. They were all cap and knee to me one moment, and
the next they were all shouting out "Who is he? Cap and knee--who is
he?" Hullo! I have an idea! It is--it isn't--can it be--the cap?'

He snatched it off his head, and round the band he read again the
couplet that had mystified him before:--

Cap on--cap and knee!
Cap off--who is he?

The words began to have a meaning now. Fairies and magic spells were
at that time common-place matters in England. Fairy stories were not
written then, but the events they tell about used to happen. The dwarf
himself had called the cap a talisman. 'I will try the experiment with
the next person I see,' said Raymond to himself.

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when a noise of pattering
hoofs made him look round, and he saw a young fellow riding towards
him on the extreme end of a small donkey. Raymond stood in the middle
of the road, his cap in his hand.

'Get out of the way, you!' called out the rider as he drew near. 'I'm
going to the Seven Brethren. Now then, stupid!'

'I also am in a hurry to get to London,' said Raymond politely.
'Couldn't you give me a ride there?'

'Mind your eye, numskull!' cried