d to Prince Vance so droll that he went
into violent fits of laughter and rolled about on the grass.

[Illustration]

As it grew dark he did indeed stop laughing and think longingly of his
soft bed with its silken pillows and down coverings, but in truth he was
so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open at all; and as soon as he
had picked his small relatives and friends out of the damp grass and put
them safely into their box, he lay down under a spreading beech-tree and
fell into a sound and delicious sleep.

The morning found the Prince somewhat refreshed and gave him a fresh
determination. He resolved to set out at once on the search for the
Crushed Strawberry Wizard, leaving no means untried until he discovered
him and prevailed upon him to change the transformed Court to its former
condition. He shouldered his box and started bravely on the road, not
knowing at all where he was going, and already beginning to regret that
he had not paid to his lessons at least sufficient attention to have
learned in which direction his own kingdom extended.

He had walked an hour or two when he saw by the roadside a man engaged
in gathering the down from the tall thistles that grew by the way.

"Hallo!" cried the Prince; "what do you expect to do with that?"

"Beds," answered the man, shortly, and without stopping his work.

"Oh!" Vance said, seating himself on a stone and putting down his box
beside him. "You make beds of it, do you? They must be very soft."

"Dandelion," replied the man.

"Dandelion?" repeated the Prince. "That doesn't mean anything."

[Illustration]

The man nodded his head in a knowing way, but said nothing. He was a
strange-looking individual, with clothing which was made of all sorts of
odds and ends pieced together; while so lean and wizened was he that it
made the Prince hungry only to look at him.

"Do you mean that dandelion down makes better beds?" asked Vance, whose
wits were being sharpened by his travels.

The other nodded.

"Then why in the world couldn't you say so? You are not dumb."

"Breath," returned the little thin man, briefly.

He moved from the bunch of thistles which he had stripped to the next,
turning as he did so and carefully picking up his footprints to use over
again and save himself the trouble of making new ones.

"You are certainly the most economical man I ever saw," declared the
Prince, irritably. "I wouldn't be so mean with my old footprints; nobody
else wo