ong nose. All the royal apartments
were filled with pictures and portraits having this peculiarity, so
that at last Prince Wish began to regard the length of his nose as his
greatest perfection, and would not have had it an inch less even to save
his crown.

When he was twenty years old his mother and his people wished him to
marry. They procured for him the likenesses of many princesses, but the
one he preferred was Princess Darling, daughter of a powerful monarch
and heiress to several kingdoms. Alas! with all her beauty, this
princess had one great misfortune, a little turned-up nose, which,
every one else said made her only the more bewitching. But here, in the
kingdom of Prince Wish, the courtiers were thrown by it into the utmost
perplexity. They were in the habit of laughing at all small noses; but
how dared they make fun of the nose of Princess Darling? Two unfortunate
gentlemen, whom Prince Wish had overheard doing so, were ignominiously
banished from the court and capital.

After this, the courtiers became alarmed, and tried to correct their
habit of speech; but they would have found themselves in constant
difficulties, had not one clever person struck out a bright idea. He
said that though it was indispensably necessary for a man to have
a great nose, women were very different; and that a learned man had
discovered in a very old manuscript that the celebrated Cleopatra, Queen
of Egypt, the beauty of the ancient world, had a turned-up nose. At this
information Prince Wish was so delighted that he made the courtier a
very handsome present, and immediately sent off ambassadors to demand
Princess Darling in marriage.

She accepted his offer at once, and returned with the ambassadors. He
made all haste to meet and welcome her, but when she was only three
leagues distant from his capital, before he had time even to kiss her
hand, the magician who had once assumed the shape of his mother's cat,
Minon, appeared in the air and carried her off before the lover's very
eyes.

Prince Wish, almost beside himself with grief, declared that nothing
should induce him to return to his throne and kingdom till he had found
Darling. He would suffer none of his courtiers or attendants to follow
him; but bidding them all adieu, mounted a good horse, laid the reins on
the animal's neck, and let him take him wherever he would.

The horse entered a wide-extended plain, and trotted on steadily the
whole day without finding a singl