the
Fair if you can only find him. You can't always find him."

"This is the Funny Man," cried a jolly gay voice. "This is I! Here I be.
Why don't you catch me?"

[Illustration]

XIII

Vance looked, and saw, dodging and hopping about behind a neighboring
booth, a fat little man dressed in green and hung all over with
fluttering ribbons and jingling bells. He looked so lively and merry
that at first sight the Prince was quite charmed with him; but he soon
thought that his looks were far more agreeable than his behavior, for
the Funny Man would neither stop to speak nor to listen, but kept
running and dodging about and hiding behind booths or groups of
peasants, so that the Prince was in despair about ever finding out from
him where the Crushed Strawberry Wizard lived.

"I want to speak to you, if you please," cried the Prince. "I have
something which I must say to you; I really must."

"Catch me, then!" cried the Funny Man. "Chase me! Run after me! Whoop!
Now you see me, and now you don't! Hurrah for me and my legs!"

Away dashed the Funny Man, and away scampered the angry Prince in
pursuit of him. But Vance soon found it to be of no use in the world to
try to capture so swift a runner; so he stopped, hot and breathless and
weary, while all the peasants held their sides to prevent their
splitting with laughter, and cried,--

"Hurrah for the Funny Man!"

"Do you give it up?" asked the Funny Man, as Vance seated himself by his
box and wiped his heated forehead.

"Of course I do," answered the Prince, crossly. "I should think you'd be
ashamed of yourself. Why do you want to act so, anyway?"

"For the fun of it afterward," replied the Funny Man.

Now that at last he was standing still, the Prince perceived that his
nose was of a most peculiar and curious fashion. It was not only of
large size and green in color, but it ended in a long and slender pipe,
something like a stick of macaroni, which was twisted up for ornament or
convenience into a sort of figure eight.

[Illustration]

"For the fun of it afterward," repeated the Funny Man.

"Well," said the Prince, "I should say that it couldn't be any great
fun, in the first place, to be a grown-up man like you, and it certainly
can be no fun whatever afterward."

"Oh," rejoined the Funny Man, "that's only one of my queer sayings, you
know. It doesn't really mean anything. By the by, what did you want of
me?"

"A friend of mine who was a jelly-fis