stone. "Whence dost come? And
where dost live?"

To which Tom replied with a bow:

"My name is well known.
From the Fairies I come.
When King Arthur shone,
This Court was my home.
By him I was knighted,
In me he delighted
--Your servant--Sir Thomas Thumb."

This address so pleased His Majesty that he ordered a little golden
chair to be made, so that Tom might sit beside him at table. Also a
little palace of gold, but a span high, with doors a bare inch wide, in
which the little fellow might take his ease.

Now King Thunstone's Queen was a very jealous woman, and could not bear
to see such honours showered on the little fellow; so she up and told
the King all sorts of bad tales about his favourite; amongst others,
that he had been saucy and rude to her.

Whereupon the King sent for Tom; but forewarned is forearmed, and
knowing by bitter experience the danger of royal displeasure, Tom hid
himself in an empty snail-shell, where he lay till he was nigh starved.
Then seeing a fine large butterfly on a dandelion close by, he climbed
up and managed to get astride it. No sooner had he gained his seat than
the butterfly was off, hovering from tree to tree, from flower to
flower.

At last the royal gardener saw it and gave chase, then the nobles joined
in the hunt, even the King himself, and finally the Queen, who forgot
her anger in the merriment. Hither and thither they ran, trying in vain
to catch the pair, and almost expiring with laughter, until poor Tom,
dizzy with so much fluttering, and doubling, and flittering, fell from
his seat into a watering-pot, where he was nearly drowned.

So they all agreed he must be forgiven, because he had afforded them so
much amusement.

[Illustration: A spider one day attacked him]

Thus Tom was once more in favour; but he did not live long to enjoy his
good luck, for a spider one day attacked him, and though he fought well,
the creature's poisonous breath proved too much for him; he fell dead on
the ground where he stood, and the spider soon sucked every drop of his
blood.

Thus ended Sir Thomas Thumb; but the King and the Court were so sorry at
the loss of their little favourite that they went into mourning for him.
And they put a fine white marble monument over his grave whereon was
carven the following epitaph:

Here lyes Tom Thumb, King Arthur's Knight,
Who died by a spider's fell despite.
He was well known in Arthur's Court,
Where he aff