re been. It got smaller
and smaller, until it was like a little brook, with rushes bending over
it, while the water whispered to the green stems.

"The fairy prince lives in there," suddenly said the gold fish, poking her
head up out of the water, so she could speak more plainly, and she pointed
with her fin to a hole in the bank. "He will come out presently. Bow your
prettiest." Well, you can just imagine how excited the duck children were.
Alice fairly trembled, and even Jimmie was interested, as they all bowed.

"All ready now!" went on the gold fish. "Behold the fairy prince. Behold!
Behold!" and she made a booming noise under the water, just like the big
bass drum, when a man in the circus jumps over sixteen elephants and a
quarter all at once.

Then, all of a sudden, oh! maybe in a second and a little more what should
come out of that hole in the side of the bank, just above the water, what,
I say, should come out of that hole--now be careful, take tight hold of
the arms of the chair, and hold your breaths, so as not to be
disappointed, what should come out of the hole but a big, brownish-black,
spotted with red and yellow, wrinkle-legged, hard-shelled, sharp-beaked
mud turtle! There, now!

At first the duck children were so frightened and surprised that they did
not know what to do or say. They had expected something so different. Did
you? Well, I'm awfully sorry, but you know I'm not responsible. I merely
tell what happens.

"Why, that isn't a fairy prince!" cried Jimmie, speaking first.

"Of course not," added Lulu.

Then the gold fish came quite close to them and whispered something.

"Do you know," said Fan Tail, "I have always had my doubts about it
myself. He says he's the fairy prince--insists on it, in fact,--and he has
it engraved on his visiting cards. But I have my doubts, only I don't dare
say so, for you see I work for him, run errands and the like of that; so
far be it from me to say he is not a fairy prince. I have, however, guided
you to him. Behold, the fairy prince!" and she called the last real
loudly, for the mud turtle was looking right at her. Then she added in a
whisper: "But I have my doubts."

"Hush! Oh hush, please!" begged Alice. "Of course he is a fairy prince!
They are always disguised like that--always appearing as something
different from what they really are, you know. Sometimes they are toads,
and sometimes frogs, and sometimes mud turtles, I suppose, though I never
hear