turn."

Rosette thanked them for all the trouble they were taking; she promised
to govern the kingdom well, and said that, during their absence, her
only pleasure would be in looking at the peacock, and making her little
dog dance. They all three cried when they said good-bye to each other.

So the two Princes started on their long journey, and they asked
everyone whom they met, "Do you know the King of the Peacocks?" but the
reply was always the same, "No, we do not." Each time they passed on and
went further, and in this way they travelled so very, very far, that no
one had ever been so far before.

They came to the kingdom of the cock-chafers; and these were in such
numbers, and made such a loud buzzing, that the King feared he should
become deaf. He asked one of them, who appeared to him to have the most
intelligence, whether he knew where the King of the Peacocks was to be
found. "Sire," replied the cock-chafer, "his kingdom lies thirty
thousand leagues from here; you have chosen the longest way to reach
it." "And how do you know that?" asked the King. "Because," answered the
cock-chafer, "we know you very well, for every year we spend two or
three months in your gardens." Whereupon the King and his brother
embraced the cock-chafer, and they went off arm in arm to dine together,
and the two strangers admired all the curiosities of that new country,
where the smallest leaf of a tree was worth a gold piece. After that,
they continued their journey, and having been directed along the right
way, they were not long in reaching its close. On their arrival, they
found all the trees laden with peacocks, and, indeed, there were
peacocks everywhere, so that they could be heard talking and screaming
two leagues off.

The King said to his brother "If the King of the Peacocks is a peacock
himself, how can our sister marry him? it would be folly to consent to
such a thing, and it would be a fine thing for us to have little
peacocks for nephews." The Prince was equally disturbed at the thought.
"It is an unhappy fancy she has taken into her head," he said. "I cannot
think what led her to imagine that there was such a person in the world
as the King of the Peacocks."

When they entered the town, they saw that it was full of men and women,
and that they all wore clothes made of peacocks' feathers, and that
these were evidently considered fine things, for every place was covered
with them. They met the King, who was driving in