"It really doesn't
matter. A good sneeze is really quite refreshing."

"That reminds me," said the monkey, "that I was sent to tell you to go
back again; this isn't the road."

"Not the--" began the Prince, looking puzzled.

"Road," finished the monkey, beginning to cry once more. "To the Crushed
Strawberry Wizard's, you know. You have just come back by another way
nearly to the Castle of Bogarru, where the giant lives. The Funny Man
told you wrong."

"Told me wrong!" repeated the poor Prince, now thoroughly discouraged.

"Yes," said the monkey, "for a joke, you know. Oh, my beautiful brass
tail! What a world this is!"

"This is the very worst and meanest joke of the whole!" cried the
Prince.

He shivered at the idea of being once more near the castle of the
terrible giant; and then he remembered the weary miles he had travelled
that day under the burning sun, and thinking of these things he could
have wept with right good-will, had it not been that the brass monkey
had already made quite a pool of tears, and Vance was afraid of causing
a flood.

"You must go back the way you came," said the monkey, wringing the tears
from its handkerchief. "It will take you longer than it did to come,
because now it will be night. At daybreak you will see three silver
birches in a meadow; then climb the hedge and follow a row of large
white stones till you come to a green stile; after this the path is
straight to the Crushed Strawberry Wizard's door. You cannot miss it."

"If this is true," said the Prince, "I am a thousand times obliged to
you. But are you quite certain that this, too, is not a joke?"

"Oh, my jointed brass body!" cried the monkey, mournfully. "Now, do I
look like a joker? I never made a joke in my life, never."

"I should be only too glad," said the Prince, as he turned to go, "to do
something to cheer you up, if I might."

"Oh, no!" wailed the monkey; "nobody can do anything. Besides, I like to
be miserable; it is the only comfort I have. Go! it is getting darker
every minute. Oh, my brass toes and fingers, what a world this is!"

At this the monkey wept so violently that Vance had to give up all idea
of thanking him or even of saying good-by; so he contented himself by
turning and hastening back along the path by which he had come.

[Illustration]

XVI

Nearly all night the Prince kept on over the stony road. When the sky
grew gray, he took a short nap under a thorny hedge, and by sunri