a warning frown. "Don't you
tell Jacob Fraasch. He's the steward. I--I know a fine place to fish.
Would you mind coming along? Look out, please! You're awful big and
they'll see you. I don't know what they'd do to us if they ketched us.
It would be dreadful. Would you mind sneaking, mister? Make yourself
little. Right up this way."

The Prince led the way up the bank, followed by the amused American, who
stooped so admirably that the boy, looking back, whispered that it was
"just fine." At the top of the knoll, the Prince turned into a little
shrub-lined path leading down to the banks of the pool almost directly
below the rocky face of the grotto.

"Don't be afraid," he whispered to his new friend. "It ain't very deep,
if you should slip in. But you'd scare the fish away. Gee, it's a great
place to catch 'em. They're all red, too. D'you ever see red fish?"

Truxton started. This was no place for him! The Prince had a right to
poach on his own preserves, but a grown man to be caught in the act of
landing the royal goldfish was not to be thought of. He hung back.

"I'm afraid I won't have time, your Highness. A friend is waiting for me
back there. He--"

"It's right here," pleaded the Prince. "Please stop a moment. I--I don't
know how to put the bait on the pin. I just want to catch a couple. They
won't bite unless there's worms on the hook. I tried 'em. Look at 'em!
Goodness, there's lots of 'em. Nobody can see us here. Please, mister,
fix a worm for me."

The man sat down behind a bush and laughed joyously. The eager,
appealing look in the lad's eyes went to his heart. What was a goldfish
or two? A fish has no feeling--not even a goldfish. There was no
resisting the boyish eagerness.

"Why, you're a real boy, after all. I thought being a prince might have
spoiled you," he said.

"Uncle Jack says I can always be a prince, but I'll soon get over being
a boy," said Prince Bobby sagely. "You _will_ fix it, won't you?"

King nodded, conscienceless now. The Prince scurried behind a big rock
and reappeared at once with a willow branch from the end of which
dangled a piece of thread. A bent pin occupied the chief end in view. He
unceremoniously shoved the branch into the hands of his confederate, and
then produced from one of his pockets a silver cigarette box, which he
gingerly opened to reveal to the gaze a conglomerate mass of angle worms
and grubs.

"A fellow gets awful dirty digging for worms, doesn't he?" he