to be known.
On leaving his native realm during the Crusades, in search of some
secure asylum, the founder of the Pantouflian monarchy landed in the
island of Cyprus, where, during the noon-tide heat, he lay down to
sleep in a cave. Now in this cave dwelt a dragon of enormous size and
unamiable character. What was the horror of the exiled prince when he
was aroused from slumber by the fiery breath of the dragon, and felt its
scaly coils about him!

"Oh, hang your practical jokes!" exclaimed the prince, imagining that
some of his courtiers were playing a prank on him.

"Do you call _this_ a joke?" asked the dragon, twisting its forked tail
into a line with his royal highness's eye.

"Do take that thing away," said the prince, "and let a man have his nap
peacefully.''

"Kiss me!" cried the dragon, which had already devoured many gallant
knights for declining to kiss it.

"Give you a kiss," murmured the prince; "oh, certainly, if that's all!
_Anything for a quiet life._"

So saying, he kissed the dragon, which instantly became a most beautiful
princess; for she had lain enchanted as a dragon, by a wicked magician,
till somebody should be bold enough to kiss her.

"My love! my hero! my lord! how long I have waited for thee; and now I
am eternally thine own!"

So murmured, in the most affectionate accents, the Lady Dragonissa, as
she was now called.

Though wedded to a bachelor life, the prince was much too well-bred to
make any remonstrance.

The Lady Dragonissa, a female of extraordinary spirit, energy, and
ambition, took command of him and of his followers, conducted them up
the Danube, seized a principality whose lord had gone crusading, set
her husband on the throne, and became in course of time the mother of a
little prince, who, again, was great, great, great, great-grandfather of
our Prince Prigio.

From this adventurous Lady Dragonissa, Prince Prigio derived his
character for gallantry. But her husband, it is said, was often heard to
remark, by a slight change of his family motto:

"_Anything for a Quiet Wife!_"

You now know as much as the Author does of the early history of
Pantouflia.

As to the story called _The Gold of Fairnilee_, such adventures were
extremely common in Scotland long ago, as may be read in many of
the works of Sir Walter Scott and of the learned in general. Indeed,
Fairnilee is the very place where the fairy queen appointed to meet her
lover, Thomas the Rhymer.

With thes