The next morning the eldest lady brought the Princess's silver mirror to
the King.

'The Charmed Life is in that, your Majesty,' she said. 'I saw the
Princess put it in.'

And so she had, but she had not seen the Princess take it out again
almost directly afterwards.

The King smashed the looking-glass, and gave orders that poor Florizel
was to be drowned in the palace fishpond.

So they tied big stones to his hands and feet and threw him in. And the
stones changed to corks and held him up, and he swam to land, and when
they arrested him as he landed they found that on each of the corks
there was a beautiful painting of Candida's face, as she saw it every
morning in her mirror.

Now, the King and Queen of Bohemia, Florizel's father and mother, had
gone to Margate for a fortnight's holiday.

'We will have a thorough holiday,' said the King; 'we will forget the
world, and not even look at a newspaper.'

But on the third day they both got tired of forgetting the world, and
each of them secretly bought a newspaper and read it on the beach, and
each rushed back and met the other on the steps of the boarding-house
where they were staying. And the Queen began to cry, and the King took
her in his arms on the doorstep, to the horror of the other boarders,
who were looking out of the windows at them; and then they rushed off to
the railway station, leaving behind them their luggage and the
astonished boarders, and took a special train to town. Because the King
had read in his newspaper, and the Queen in hers, that the Lift-man was
being executed every morning from nine to twelve; and though, so far,
none of the executions had ended fatally, yet at any moment the Prince's
Charmed Life might be taken, and then there would be an end of the daily
executions--a very terrible end.

Arrived at the capital, the poor Queen of Bohemia got into a hansom with
the King, and they were driven to the palace. The palace-yard was
crowded.

'What is the matter?' the King of Bohemia asked.

'It's that Lift-man,' said a bystander, with spectacles and a straw hat;
'he has as many lives as a cat. They tried boiling oil this morning, and
the oil turned into white-rose leaves, and the fire under it turned to
a white-rose bush. And now the King has sent for Princess Candida, and
is going to have it out with her. The whole thing has been most
exciting.'

'I should think so,' said the Lift-man's father.

'Of course,' said the bystander in sp