idge.

The bottle was set down among the sacks of gold, and the junior
secretary to the junior clerk of the last Lord of the Treasury was
appointed to sit up all night with it and see if anything happened. The
junior secretary had never seen a dragon, and, what was more, he did not
believe the Prince had ever seen a dragon either. The Prince had never
been a really truthful boy, and it would have been just like him to
bring home a bottle with nothing in it and then to pretend that there
was a dragon inside. So the junior secretary did not at all mind being
left. They gave him the key, and when everyone in the town had gone back
to bed he let in some of the junior secretaries from other Government
departments, and they had a jolly game of hide-and-seek among the sacks
of gold, and played marbles with the diamonds and rubies and pearls in
the big ivory chests.

They enjoyed themselves very much, but by-and-by the copper treasury
began to get warmer and warmer, and suddenly the junior secretary cried
out, "Look at the bottle!"

The bottle sealed with Solomon's seal had swollen to three times its
proper size and seemed to be nearly red hot, and the air got warmer and
warmer and the bottle bigger and bigger, till all the junior secretaries
agreed that the place was too hot to hold them, and out they went,
tumbling over each other in their haste, and just as the last got out
and locked the door the bottle burst, and out came the dragon, very
fiery, and swelling more and more every minute, and he began to eat the
sacks of gold and crunch up the pearls and diamonds and rubies as if
they were sugar.

By breakfasttime he had devoured the whole of the Prince's treasures,
and when the Prince came along the street at about eleven, he met the
dragon coming out of the broken door of the Treasury, with molten gold
still dripping from his jaws. Then the Prince turned and ran for his
life, and as he ran toward the dragonproof tower the little white
Princess saw him coming, and she ran down and unlocked the door and let
him in, and slammed the dragonproof door in the fiery face of the
dragon, who sat down and whined outside, because he wanted the Prince
very much indeed.

The Princess took Prince Tiresome into the best room, and laid the
cloth, and gave him cream and eggs and white grapes and honey and bread,
with many other things, yellow and white and good to eat, and she served
him just as kindly as she would have done if he had