me boldly into the courtyard of the palace, quite
as if the whole place belonged to him; and catching sight of Prince
Vance at the window above, he raised one finger, long and skinny and
blue as a larkspur blossom, and beckoned for him to come down.

The Prince hesitated. Certainly the Blue Wizard was not so charming in
his looks as to make one wish to get any nearer to him, but Vance
happened to remember that his godmother had seemed to disapprove most
highly of this very wizard; so with an idea of displeasing Copetta, the
Prince obeyed the beckoning finger and went down.

[Illustration]

At a nearer view the Wizard looked even uglier than from a distance. His
very lips were blue, and when he opened his mouth his tongue was seen to
be blue also.

"Come," he said to the Prince, in rather an injured tone, "you keep me
waiting long enough, I hope, when I only came to teach you a droll
trick."

"That is good," answered Vance, growing interested at once. "I do like
droll tricks. What is it?"

"It is in here," the Blue Wizard said, holding out a pretty gold bonbon
box. "Just make anybody eat one of these, and then you shall see what
you shall see."

The Prince took the box in his hand and opened his lips to ask another
question; but before he could speak a single word the Blue Wizard had
vanished quite away, and he stood alone.

He went slowly and thoughtfully upstairs, wondering what the trick could
be.

"I'll try it on the tutor first," he concluded, "because I'm sure I
don't care what happens to him, and I really must know what the droll
trick is."

So he went smilingly up to his tutor and offered the open box; and the
simple old gentleman, suspecting nothing, bowed and simpered at the
great honor his Royal Highness did him, and quickly swallowed one of
the little bonbons.

And this is what happened. Pouf! The unfortunate tutor shut up like a
crush-hat, and shrunk together until he was as short as a pygmy and as
plump as a mushroom. Really one might just as well have no tutor at all
as to have one so tiny. How Prince Vance did laugh! Of all the wizards
he had ever known--and for one so young his Highness had known a great
many wizards; he almost always met more or less of them when he played
truant by climbing out of a back window and going into the woods
fishing--he thought the Blue Wizard was the most amusing and had
invented the very drollest trick.

"Dear me, your Highness!" said the poor tutor, in so