ened."

"No, I'm not even a rabbit," said Udo sadly. "I'm just nothing."

Belvane stood up and made him a deep curtsey.

"You are his Royal Highness Prince Udo of Araby. Your Royal
Highness's straw is prepared. When will your Royal Highness be
pleased to retire?"

It was a little unkind, I think. I should not record it of her were
not Roger so insistent.

"Now," said Udo, and lolloped sadly off. It was his one really
dignified moment in Euralia.

On his way to his apartment he met Wiggs.

"Wiggs," he said solemnly, "if ever you can do anything to annoy that
woman, such as making her an apple-pie bed, or _anything_ like that, I
wish you'd do it."

Whereupon he retired for the night. Into the mysteries of his toilet
we had perhaps better not inquire.

* * * * *

As the chronicler of these simple happenings many years ago, it is my
duty to be impartial. "These are the facts," I should say, "and it is
for your nobilities to judge of them. Thus and thus my characters
have acted; how say you, my lords and ladies?"

I confess that this attitude is beyond me; I have a fondness for all
my people, and I would not have you misunderstand any of them. But
with regard to one of them there is no need for me to say anything in
her defence. About her at any rate we agree.

I mean Wiggs. We take the same view as Hyacinth: she was the best
little girl in Euralia. It will come then as a shock to you (as it
did to me on the morning after I had staggered home with Roger's
seventeen volumes) to learn that on her day Wiggs could be as bad as
anybody. I mean really bad. To tear your frock, to read books which
you ought to be dusting, these are accidents which may happen to
anybody. Far otherwise was Wiggs's fall.

She adopted, in fact, the infamous suggestion of Prince Udo. Three
nights later, with malice aforethought and to the comfort of the
King's enemies and the prejudice of the safety of the realm, she made
an apple-pie bed for the Countess.

It was the most perfect apple-pie bed ever made. Cox himself could
not have improved upon it; Newton has seen nothing like it. It took
Wiggs a whole morning; and the results, though private (that is the
worst of an apple-pie bed), were beyond expectation. After wrestling
for half an hour the Countess spent the night in a garden hammock,
composing a bitter Ode to Melancholy.

Of course Wiggs caught it in the morning; the Countess suspected what
she could not