"Now don"t say, "Where am I?"" said the niece.
The papa could not help laughing, because that was just the very thing he was going to say. "Well, all right! What about that story? Do you want to hear it, and take your chances of its being a Prince to the end?"
"I suppose we"ll have to; won"t we, sister?"
"Yes, we"ll leave it all to you, uncle," said the niece; and she thought she would coax him up a little, and so she went on: "I know you won"t be mean about it. Will he, brother?"
"No," said the nephew. "I"ll bet the Prince will keep a Prince all the way through. What"ll _you_ bet, sister?"
"I won"t bet anything," said the niece, and she put her arm round the papa"s neck, and pressed her cheek up against his. "I"ll just leave it to uncle, and if it _does_ turn into a little-pig story, it"ll be for the moral."
The nephew was not quite sure what a moral was; but at the bottom of his heart he would just as soon have it a little-pig story as not. He had got to thinking how funny a little pig would look in a Prince"s clothes, and he said, "Yes, it"ll be for the moral."
The papa was very contrary that morning. "Well," said he, "I don"t know about that. I"m not sure there"s going to be any moral."
"Oh, goody!" said the niece, and she clapped her hands in great delight.
"Then it"s going to be a Prince story all through!"
"If you interrupt me in that way, it"s not going to be any story at all."
"I didn"t know you had begun it, uncle," pleaded the niece.
"Well, I hadn"t. But I was just going to." The papa lay quiet a while.
The fact is, he had not thought up any story at all; and he was so tired of all the stories he used to tell his own children that he could not bear to tell one of them, though he knew very well that the niece and nephew would be just as glad of it as if it were new, and maybe gladder; for they had heard a great deal about these stories, how perfectly splendid they were--like the Pumpkin-Glory, and the Little Pig that took the Poison Pills, and the Proud Little Horse-car that fell in Love with the Pullman Sleeper, and j.a.p Doll Hopsing"s Adventures in Crossing the Continent, and the Enchantment of the Greedy Travellers, and the Little Boy whose Legs turned into Bicycle Wheels. At last the papa said, "This is a very peculiar kind of a story. It"s about a Prince and a Princess."
"Oh!" went both of the children; and then they stopped themselves, and stuffed the covering into their mouths.
The papa lifted himself on his elbow and stared severely at them, first at one, and then at the other. "Have you finished?" he asked, as if they had interrupted him; but he really wanted to gain time, so as to think up a story of some kind. The children were afraid to say anything, and the papa went on with freezing politeness: "Because if you have, I might like to say something myself. This story is about a Prince and a Princess, but the thing of it is that they had names almost exactly alike. They were twins; the Prince was a boy and the Princess was a girl; that was a point that their fairy G.o.dmother carried against the wicked enchantress who tried to have it just the other way; but it made the wicked enchantress so mad that the fairy G.o.dmother had to give in to her a little, and let them be named almost exactly alike."
Here the papa stopped, and after waiting for him to go on, the nephew ventured to ask, very respectfully indeed, "Would you mind telling us what their names were, uncle?"
The papa rubbed his forehead. "I have such a bad memory for names. Hold on! Wait a minute! I remember now! Their names were b.u.t.terflyflutterby and Flutterbyb.u.t.terfly." Of course he had just thought up the names.
"And which was which, uncle dear?" asked the niece, not only very respectfully, but very affectionately, too; she was so afraid he would get mad again, and stop altogether.
"Why, I should think you would know a girl"s name when you heard it.
b.u.t.terflyflutterby was the Prince and Flutterbyb.u.t.terfly was the Princess."
"I don"t see how we"re ever going to keep them apart," sighed the niece.
"You"ve _got_ to keep them apart," said the papa. "Because it"s the great thing about the story that if you can"t remember which is the Prince and which is the Princess whenever I ask you, the story has to stop. It can"t help it, and _I_ can"t help it."
They knew he was just setting a trap for them, and the same thought struck them both at once. They rose up and leaned over the papa, with their arms across and their fluffy heads together in the form of a capital letter A, and whispered in each other"s ears, "You say it"s one, and I"ll say it"s the other, and then we"ll have it right between us."
They dropped back and pulled the covering up to their chins, and shouted, "Don"t you tell! don"t you tell!" and just perfectly wriggled with triumph.
The papa had heard every word; they were laughing so that they whispered almost as loud as talking; but he pretended that he had not understood, and he made up his mind that he would have them yet. "A little and a more," he said, "and I should never have gone on again."
"Go on! Go on!" they called out, and then they wriggled and giggled till anybody would have thought they were both crazy.
"Well, where was I?" This was another of the papa"s tricks to gain time.
Whenever he could not think of anything more, he always asked, "Well, where was I?" He now added: "Oh yes! I remember! Well, once there were a Prince and a Princess, and their names were b.u.t.terflyflutterby and Flutterbyb.u.t.terfly; and they were both twins, and both orphans; but they made their home with their fairy G.o.dmother as long as they were little, and they used to help her about the house for part board, and she helped them about their kingdom, and kept it in good order for them, and left them plenty of time to play and enjoy themselves. She was the greatest person for order there ever was; and if she found a speck of dust or dirt on the kingdom anywhere, she would have out the whole army and make them wash it up, and then sand-paper the place, and polish it with a coa.r.s.e towel till it perfectly glistened. The father of the Prince and Princess had taken the precaution, before he died, to subdue all his enemies; and the consequence was that the longest kind of peace had set in, and the army had nothing to do but keep the kingdom clean. That was the reason why the fairy G.o.dmother had made the General-in-Chief take their guns away, and arm them with long feather-dusters. They marched with the poles on their shoulders, and carried the dusters in their belts, like bayonets; and whenever they came to a place that the fairy G.o.dmother said needed dusting--she always went along with them in a diamond chariot--she made the General halloo out: "Fix dusters! Make ready! Aim! Dust!" And then the place would be cleaned up. But the General-in-Chief used to go out behind the church and cry, it mortified him so to have to give such orders, and it reminded him so painfully of the good old times when he would order his men to charge the enemy, and cover the field with gore and blood, instead of having it so awfully spick-and-span as it was now. Still he did what the fairy G.o.dmother told him, because he said it was his duty; and he kept his troops supplied with sudsine and dustene, to clean up with, and brushes and towels. The fairy G.o.dmother--"
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""FIX DUSTERS! MAKE READY! AIM! DUST!""]
"Excuse me, uncle," said the nephew, with extreme deference, "but I should just like to ask you one question. Will you let me?"
"What is it?" said the papa, in the grimmest kind of manner he could put on.
"Ah, brother!" murmured the niece; for she knew that he was rather sarcastic, and she was afraid that something ironical was coming.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE GENERAL-IN-CHIEF USED TO GO BEHIND THE CHURCH AND CRY."]
"Well, I just wanted to ask whether this story was about the fairy G.o.dmother, or about the Prince and Princess."
"Very well, now," said the papa. "You"ve asked your question. I didn"t promise to answer it, and I"m happy to say it stops the story. I"ll guess _I"ll_ go to sleep again. I don"t like being waked up this way in the middle of the night, anyhow."
"Now, brother, I hope you"re satisfied!" said the niece.
The nephew evaded the point. He said: "Well, sister, if the story really isn"t going on, I should like to ask uncle another question. How big was the fairy G.o.dmother"s diamond chariot?"
"It was the usual sized chariot," answered the papa.
"Whew! It must have been a pretty big diamond, then!"
"It was a _very_ big diamond," said the papa; and he seemed to forget all about being mad, or else he had thought up some more of the story to tell, for he went on just as if nothing had happened. "The fairy G.o.dmother was so severe with the dirt she found because it was a royal prerogative--that is, n.o.body but the King, or the King"s family, had a right to make a mess, and if other people did it, they were infringing on the royal prerogative.
"You know," the papa explained, "that in old times and countries the royal family have been allowed to do things that no other family would have been a.s.sociated with if they had done them. That is about the only use there is in having a royal family. But the fairy G.o.dmother of Prince--"
"b.u.t.terflyflutterby," said the niece.
"And Princess--"
"Flutterbyb.u.t.terfly," said the nephew.
"Correct," said the papa.
The children rose up into a capital A again, and whispered, "He didn"t catch us _that_ time," and fell back, laughing, and the papa had to go on.
"The fairy G.o.dmother thought she would try to bring up the Prince and Princess rather better than most Princes and Princesses were brought up, and so she said that the only thing they should be allowed to do different from other people was to make a mess. If any other persons were caught making a mess they were banished; and there was another law that was perfectly awful."
"What-was-it-go-ahead?" said the nephew, running all his words together, he was so anxious to know.
"Why, if any person was found clearing up anywhere, and it turned out to be a mess that the royal twins had made, the person was thrown from a tower."
"Did it kill them?" the niece inquired, rather faintly.
"Well, no, it didn"t _kill_ them exactly, but it bounced them up pretty high. You see, they fell on a bed of India-rubber about twenty feet deep. It gave them a good scare; and that"s the great thing in throwing persons from a high tower."