g-a-ting, seemed quite sad and dejected. He spent nearly all his time
lying in a half-opened rose-bud, and thinking of the dear little
creature who was gone. But one morning, the bud having become a
full-blown rose, its petals fell apart, and dropped little Ting-a-ling
out on the grass. The sudden fall did not hurt him, but it roused him to
exertion, and he said, "O ho! This will never do. I will go up to the
palace, and see if there is anything going on." So off he went to the
great palace; and sure enough something was going on. He had scarcely
reached the court-yard, when the bells began to ring, the horns to blow,
the drums to beat, and crowds of people to shout and run in every
direction, and there was never such a noise and hubbub before.

Ting-a-ling slipped along close to the wall, so that he would not be
stepped on by anybody; and having reached the palace, he climbed up a
long trailing vine, into one of the lower windows. There he saw the vast
audience-chamber filled with people, shouting, and calling, and talking,
all at once. The grand vizier was on the wide platform of the throne,
making a speech, but the uproar was so great that not one word of it
could Ting-a-ling hear. The King himself was by his throne, putting on
the bulky boots, which he only wore when he went to battle, and which
made him look so terrible that a person could hardly see him without
trembling. The last time that he had worn those boots, as Ting-a-ling
very well knew, he had made war on a neighboring country, and had
defeated all the armies, killed all the people, torn down all the towns
and cities, and every house and cottage, and ploughed up the whole
country, and sowed it with thistles, so that it could never be used as a
country any more. So Ting-a-ling thought that as the King was putting on
his war boots, something very great was surely about to happen. Hearing
a fizzing noise behind him, he turned around, and there was the Prince
in the court-yard, grinding his sword on a grindstone, which was turned
by two slaves, who were working away so hard and fast that they were
nearly ready to drop. Then he _knew_ that wonderful things were surely
coming to pass, for in ordinary times the Prince never lifted his finger
to do anything for himself.

[Illustration]

Just then, a little page, who had been sent for the King's spurs, and
couldn't find them, and who was therefore afraid to go back, stopped to
rest himself for a minute against t