foot; "yet he shall believe it is just like all other
noses, and shall be always unfortunate till he has found out it is
not. And if you ever tell anybody of this threat of mine, you shall
die on the spot." So saying, the magician disappeared.

The king, who was at first much terrified, soon began to laugh at this
adventure. "My son might have a worse misfortune than too long a
nose," thought he. "At least it will hinder him neither in seeing nor
hearing. I will go and find the princess, and marry her at once."

He did so, but he only lived a few months after, and died before his
little son was born, so that nobody knew anything about the secret of
the nose.

The little prince was so much wished for, that when he came into the
world they agreed to call him Prince Wish. He had beautiful blue eyes
and a sweet little mouth, but his nose was so big that it covered half
his face. The queen, his mother, was inconsolable; but her ladies
tried to satisfy her by telling her that the nose was not nearly so
large as it seemed, that it would grow smaller as the prince grew
bigger, and that if it did not a large nose was indispensable to a
hero. All great soldiers, they said, had great noses, as everybody
knew. The queen was so very fond of her son that she listened eagerly
to all this comfort. Shortly she grew so used to the prince's nose
that it did not seem to her any larger than ordinary noses of the
court; where, in process of time, everybody with a long nose was very
much admired, and the unfortunate people who had only snubs were taken
very little notice of.

Great care was observed in the education of the prince; and as soon as
he could speak they told him all sorts of amusing tales, in which all
the bad people had short noses, and all the good people had long ones.
No person was suffered to come near him who had not a nose of more
than ordinary length; nay, to such an extent did the courtiers carry
their fancy, that the noses of all the little babies were ordered to
be pulled out as far as possible several times a day, in order to make
them grow. But grow as they would, they never could grow as long as
that of Prince Wish. When he was old enough his tutor taught him
history; and whenever any great king or lovely princess was referred
to, the tutor always took care to mention that he or she had a long
nose. All the royal apartments were filled with pictures and portraits
having this peculiarity, so that at last Prince Wi