elephants got big, and the men and women and
children would have changed sizes too, if they had not had the sense to
hold on to themselves, very tight indeed, with both hands; which, of
course, the animals could not be expected to know how to do. And the
best of it was that when the small beasts got big and the big beasts got
small the dragon got small too, and fell at the Princess's feet--a
little, crawling, purple newt with wings.

[Illustration: "The dragon ran after her." _See page 34._]

"Funny little thing," said the Princess, when she saw it. "I will take
it for a birthday present."

But while all the people were still on their faces, holding on tight to
themselves, Uncle James, the magician, never thought of holding
tight--he only thought of how to punish Belgian hares and the sons of
gardeners; so when the big beasts grew small, he grew small with the
other beasts, and the little purple dragon, when he fell at the
Princess's feet, saw there a very small magician named Uncle James. And
the dragon took him because it wanted a birthday present.

So now all the animals were new sizes--and at first it seemed very
strange to everyone to have great lumbering elephants and a tiny little
dormouse, but they have gotten used to it now, and think no more of it
than we do.

All this happened several years ago, and the other day I saw in the
_Rotundia Times_ an account of the wedding of the Princess with Lord
Thomas Gardener, K.C.D., and I knew she could not have married anyone
but Tom, so I suppose they made him a Lord on purpose for the
wedding--and _K.C.D._, of course, means Clever Conqueror of the Dragon.
If you think that is wrong it is only because you don't know how they
spell in Rotundia. The paper said that among the beautiful presents of
the bridegroom to the bride was an enormous elephant, on which the
bridal pair made their wedding tour. This must have been Fido. You
remember Tom promised to give him back to the Princess when they were
married. The _Rotundia Times_ called the married couple "the happy
pair." It was clever of the paper to think of calling them that--it is
such a pretty and novel expression, and I think it is truer than many of
the things you see in papers.

Because, you see, the Princess and the gardener's son were so fond of
each other they could not help being happy--and besides, they had an
elephant of their very own to ride on. If that is not enough to make
people happy, I should like