cked forth_ into
the wilderness, making for the country inhabited by the Yellow Dwarf. The
princess was glad he was riding, for she privately accompanied him in the
disguise of a wasp; and a wasp, of course, could not have kept up with
him in his Seven-league Boots.

"Hang that wops!" said Prince Ricardo several times, buffeting it with
his pocket-handkerchief when it buzzed in his ear and round his horse's
head.

{"Hang that wops!" said Prince Ricardo: p129.jpg}

Meanwhile, King Prigio had taken his precautions, which were perfectly
simple. When he thought Ricardo was getting near the place, the king put
on his Wishing Cap, sat down before the magic crystal ball, and kept his
eye on the proceedings, being ready to wish the right thing to help
Ricardo at the right moment. He left the window wide open, smoked his
cigar, and seemed the pattern of a good and wise father watching the
conduct of a promising son.

The prince rode and rode, sometimes taking up Pepper on his saddle;
passing through forests, sleeping at lonely inns, fording rivers, till
one day he saw that the air was becoming Yellow. He knew that this
showed the neighbourhood of Jaunia, or Daunia, the country of the Yellow
Dwarf. He therefore drew bridle, placed his rose-coloured spectacles on
his nose and put spurs to his horse, for the yellow light of Jaunia makes
people melancholy and cowardly. As he pricked on, his horse stumbled and
nearly came on its nose. The prince noticed that a steel chain had been
drawn across the road.

"What caitiff has dared!" he exclaimed, when his hat was knocked off by a
well-aimed orange from a neighbouring orange-tree, and a vulgar voice
squeaked:

"Hi, Blinkers!"

There was the Yellow Dwarf, an odious little figure, sitting sucking an
orange in the tree, swinging his wooden shoes, and grinning all over his
wrinkled face.

"Well, young Blinkers!" said the Dwarf, "what are you doing on my
grounds? You're a prince, by your look. Yah! down with kings! I'm a
man of the people!"

"You're a dwarf of the worst description, that's what _you_ are," said
Ricardo; "and let me catch you, and I'll flog the life out of you with my
riding-whip!"

The very face of the Dwarf, even seen through rose-coloured spectacles,
made him nearly ill.

"Yes, when you can catch me," said the Dwarf; "but that's not to-day, nor
yet to-morrow. What are you doing here? Are you an ambassador, maybe
come to propose a match for me? I