iday throughout Euralia
(_terrific cheering_). I bid you all now return to your homes, and I
hope that you will find as warm a welcome there as I have found in
mine." Here he turned and embraced his daughter again; and if his eye
travelled over her shoulder in the direction of Belvane's garden, it
is a small matter, and one for which the architect of the castle, no
doubt, was principally to blame.

There was another storm of cheers, the battle-cry of Euralia, "_Ho,
ho, Merriwig!_" was shouted from five hundred throats, and the men
dispersed happily to their homes. Hyacinth and Merriwig went into the
Palace.

"Now, Father," said Hyacinth later on, when Merriwig had changed his
clothes and refreshed himself, "you've got to tell me all about it. I
can hardly believe it's really over."

"Yes, yes. It's all over," said Merriwig heartily. "We shan't have
any trouble in _that_ direction again, I fancy."

"Do tell me, did the King of Barodia apologise?"

"He did better than that, he abdicated."

"Why?"

"Well," said Merriwig, remembering just in time, "I--er--killed him."

"Oh, Father, how rough of you."

"I don't think it hurt him very much, my dear. It was more a shock to
his feelings than anything else. See, I have brought these home for
you."

He produced from his pocket a small packet in tissue paper.

"Oh, how exciting! Whatever can it be?"

Merriwig unwrapped the paper, and disclosed a couple of ginger
whiskers, neatly tied up with blue ribbon.

"Father!"

He picked out the left one, _fons et origo_ (if he had known any
Latin) of the war, and held it up for Hyacinth's inspection.

"There, you can see the place where Henry Smallnose's arrow bent it.
By the way," he added, "Henry is marrying and settling down in
Barodia. It is curious," he went on, "how after a war one's thoughts
turn to matrimony." He glanced at his daughter to see how she would
take this, but she was still engrossed with the whiskers.

"What am I going to do with them, Father? I can't plant them in the
garden."

"I thought we might run them up the flagstaff, as we did in Barodia."

"Isn't that a little unkind now that the poor man's dead?"

Merriwig looked round him to see that there were no eavesdroppers.

"Can you keep a secret?" he asked mysteriously.

"Of course," said Hyacinth, deciding at once that it would not matter
if she only told Coronel.

"Well, then, listen."

He told her of his secret journey to th