ght amuse
her; so she gave the mother a golden florin, and took poor silly Bobo
with her to be her page.

[Illustration: In the background, a castle; in the middle ground, a boy
throwing a spiny object into a dragon's mouth; in the foreground, a
frightened girl.]

Just as the dragon's mouth was at, its widest ....

You may be sure that it did not take the wise folk at the castle long to
discover how great a simpleton had arrived. Courtiers, footmen, lackeys,
turnspits even, were forever sending him off on ridiculous errands. Now
he would be sent to find a white craw's feather or a spray of yellow
bluebells; now he was ordered to look for a square wheel or a glass of
dry water. Everybody laughed at him and made fun of him--that is,
everybody except little Tilda, the kitchen-maid. When poor Bobo used to
return from some wild-goose chase, tired out, mud-stained, and often
enough wet to the skin, instead of laughing, little Tilda would find him
a glass of warm milk, hang his coat by the fire to dry, and tell him not
to be such a simpleton again. Thus, after a while, Bobo learned to ask
Tilda's advice before going away on a wild-goose chase, and was in this
way saved from many a jest.

Tilda, the kitchen-maid, was as sweet and pretty as she was kind and
good. She was said to be the daughter of an old crane who had come to
the castle one day, asking for help.

One pleasant mid-summer morning, when Bobo had been nearly a year at the
castle, Princess Zenza overslept half an hour and did not come down to
breakfast at the usual time. When she did get up, she found her court
waiting for her in the castle gardens. As she came down the steps of the
garden terrace, the Princess looked up at the castle clock to see how
late she was, and said to her lady in waiting,--

"Dear me--why, I've lost half an hour this morning!"

At these words, Bobo, who was in attendance, pricked up his ears and
said,--

"Please, Your Highness, perhaps I can find it."

At this idea of finding a lost half-hour, the Princess laughed, and
found herself echoed by the company.

"Shall we send Bobo in search of the lost half-hour?" said the Princess
to the courtiers.

"Yes! Yes!" cried the courtiers. "Bobo shall look for the lost
half-hour."

"I'll give him a horse," said one. "I'll give him my old hat," said
another. "He can have an old sword I broke last week," said still
another.

And so, in less time than it takes to tell about it, poor