ll I show you the royal palace?"

It was a very magnificent palace. It had terraces and gardens,
battlements and towers. It extended over acres of ground, and had in
it rooms enough to accommodate half the city. Its windows looked in all
directions, but none of them had any particular view--except a small
one, high up toward the roof, which looked out on the Beautiful
Mountains. But since the queen died there it had been closed, boarded
up, indeed, the magpie said. It was so little and inconvenient that
nobody cared to live in it. Besides, the lower apartments, which had no
view, were magnificent--worthy of being inhabited by the king.

"I should like to see the king," said Prince Dolor.

CHAPTER VIII

What, I wonder, would be people's idea of a king? What was Prince
Dolor's?

Perhaps a very splendid personage, with a crown on his head and a
scepter in his hand, sitting on a throne and judging the people. Always
doing right, and never wrong--"The king can do no wrong" was a law
laid down in olden times. Never cross, or tired, or sick, or suffering;
perfectly handsome and well dressed, calm and good-tempered, ready to
see and hear everybody, and discourteous to nobody; all things always
going well with him, and nothing unpleasant ever happening.

This, probably, was what Prince Dolor expected to see. And what did he
see? But I must tell you how he saw it.

"Ah," said the magpie, "no levee to-day. The King is ill, though his
Majesty does not wish it to be generally known--it would be so very
inconvenient. He can't see you, but perhaps you might like to go and
take a look at him in a way I often do? It is so very amusing."

Amusing, indeed!

The prince was just now too much excited to talk much. Was he not going
to see the king his uncle, who had succeeded his father and dethroned
himself; had stepped into all the pleasant things that he, Prince Dolor,
ought to have had, and shut him up in a desolate tower? What was he
like, this great, bad, clever man? Had he got all the things he wanted,
which another ought to have had? And did he enjoy them?

"Nobody knows," answered the magpie, just as if she had been sitting
inside the prince's heart, instead of on the top of his shoulder. "He is
a king, and that's enough. For the rest nobody knows."

As she spoke, Mag flew down on to the palace roof, where the cloak
had rested, settling down between the great stacks of chimneys as
comfortably as if on the ground. She