llow gorse and blew it all away so completely that not a trace of it
was left, except one small bush that the Prince had no difficulty in
jumping over. The cannon went back to nowhere at all, just as the
steamboat had done.

"Thank you very much," said the Prince Perfection as loudly as he
could; and again no one answered him. He was much surprised, however,
when he looked back and found that the gorse bush had disappeared as
soon as he had jumped over it. After that he walked on for a long way;
and just as he was beginning to feel tired, and the sun was beginning
to think about setting, he tumbled right up against a big iceberg. It
is not usual for icebergs to drop down suddenly in the middle of the
road, but that is what this particular iceberg did, and that is why the
Prince tumbled against it.

"Dear me," sighed Prince Perfection, for even a prince's legs are not
very long when he is only ten years old, and it is not pleasant to have
to climb an iceberg at the end of a long walk. There was no help for
it, however, for there was the iceberg waiting to be climbed; so the
little Prince went straight at it as bravely as he could. Any one who
is accustomed to climbing icebergs will at once know how difficult
Prince Perfection found it; and he tried seven times without being able
to get up a single yard of it.

"Good-day to you," said a voice, which sounded as though it came from
the very middle of the iceberg. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

"I am so glad you have come!" exclaimed the Prince; although, for that
matter, no one had come at all. "I am Prince Perfection, and I want
what you are thinking about."

"There certainly is no accounting for tastes," observed the voice. "I
was just thinking about a real balloon that would take me wherever I
wanted to go; and what use that would be to you I cannot imagine."

The Prince did not trouble to explain what use it would be to him, for
at that very instant the balloon floated down towards him, and he
stepped into it as a matter of course. It was far more beautiful than
anything he had ever been able to imagine, however; and the movement of
it was so delicious that he fell sound asleep the moment it began to
carry him upwards; and he could not keep awake long enough even to
thank the sender of it. When he awoke, he was lying on the grass under
a silver birch tree, and in front of him was a red brick fort with
battlements and a drawbridge. It was so like