e fierceness of that dragon was such that all the waters of all
the sea were not enough to cool him. The whirlpool is too strong for him
to be able to get out of it, so there he spins around and around forever
and ever, doing some useful work at last, and warming the water for poor
fisher-folk to shave with.

* * * * *

The Prince and Princess rule the land well and wisely. The nurse lives
with them, and does nothing but fine sewing, and only that when she
wants to very much. The Prince keeps no hippopotamuses, and is
consequently very popular. The five and seventy devoted pigs live in
white marble sties with brass knockers and Pig on the doorplate, and are
washed twice a day with Turkish sponges and soap scented with violets,
and no one objects to their following the Prince when he walks abroad,
for they behave beautifully, and always keep to the footpath, and obey
the notices about not walking on the grass. The Princess feeds them
every day with her own hands, and her first edict on coming to the
throne was that the word _pork_ should never be uttered on pain of
death, and should, besides, be scratched out of all the dictionaries.

[Illustration: VIII

KIND LITTLE EDMUND]

VIII. Kind Little Edmund, or The Caves and the Cockatrice

Edmund was a boy. The people who did not like him said that he was the
most tiresome boy that ever lived, but his grandmother and his other
friends said that he had an inquiring mind. And his granny often added
that he was the best of boys. But she was very kind and very old.

Edmund loved to find out about things. Perhaps you will think that in
that case he was constant in his attendance at school, since there, if
anywhere, we may learn whatever there is to be learned. But Edmund did
not want to learn things: He wanted to find things out, which is quite
different. His inquiring mind led him to take clocks to pieces to see
what made them go, to take locks off doors to see what made them stick.
It was Edmund who cut open the India rubber ball to see what made it
bounce, and he never did see, any more than you did when you tried the
same experiment.

Edmund lived with his grandmother. She loved him very much, in spite of
his inquiring mind, and hardly scolded him at all when he frizzled up
her tortoiseshell comb in his anxiety to find out whether it was made of
real tortoiseshell or of something that would burn. Edmund went to
school, of co