had, on this account, a great asylum built, to
which the disappointed candidates were immediately conveyed, and the
house was very soon filled. Indeed, it was often necessary to build
extensions to the main building, and it was not long before this was the
largest edifice in the country. It is true, that although every one
failed to sing the music, they did not all go crazy; but they were taken
to the asylum the same as the rest, and if they were not crazy when they
got there, they soon became so, and thus it amounted to pretty much the
same thing in the end. Well, the judges sat in their chairs until they
died at a good old age, and they were succeeded by others just as
learned. Latterly there were not so many applications as there used to
be, but still, every few days, some one went out to the asylum. Years
passed, and the offices of the judges became sinecures; but they had to
sit there all the same, just as if they expected to be busy; and they
might have been seen, whenever anybody chose to step in during the day,
sitting there with their chins on their breasts, fast asleep. The Prime
Minister, and after him his son, ruled the country very well, and people
began to feel as if they didn't care if they never had a king or a queen
to govern them. As a rule, they all felt very comfortable without
anything of the kind.

Now it so happened that about this time a certain young Prince,
accompanied by an old gentleman (to take care of him), was travelling in
this great kingdom. His father's dominion was very many miles away; but
the Prince had been journeying in this direction for quite a long time,
taking things easily, and seeing everything that was to be seen. His
mother had died when he was quite young, and his father had lately
married the daughter of a gnome, probably because their estates
joined,--his stretching for many miles over the surface of the earth,
while hers lay immediately beneath them. The Prince did not like his
gnome step-mother (who was, you know, one of those large underground
fairies, who are more like human beings than any others), and when a
little gnome-baby was born, he could stand it no longer, and so obtained
permission of his father to travel for the good of his body and mind. So
he had been going from country to country until he reached the capital
city of the great kingdom.

[Illustration]

There the Prince saw enough to fill him with wonder for the rest of his
life. His old friend, Trum