:

"It is now fourteen years since I appointed you to this place, and in
all that time there have been no prisoners, and you and your men have
been drawing your wages without doing any thing. I shall return this
way in a few days, and if I still find you idle I shall discharge you
all and close the jail."

This filled the jailer with great dismay, for he did not wish to lose
his good situation. When he saw the Prince and his party approaching,
the thought struck him that perhaps he might make prisoners of them,
and so not be found idle when the Potentate returned. He came out to
meet the hunters, and when they asked if they could here find
refreshment, he gave them a most cordial welcome. His men took their
horses, and, inviting them to enter, he showed each member of the
party into a small bedroom, of which there seemed to be a great many.

"Here are water and towels," he said to each one, "and when you have
washed your face and hands, your refreshments will be ready." Then,
going out, he locked the door on the outside.

The party numbered seventeen: the Prince, three courtiers, five boys,
five girls, the course-marker, the map-maker, and the Jolly-cum-pop.
The heart of the jailer was joyful; seventeen inmates was something
to be proud of. He ordered his myrmidons to give the prisoners a meal
of bread and water through the holes in their cell-doors, and then he
sat down to make out his report to the Potentate.

"They must all be guilty of crimes," he said to himself, "which are
punished by long imprisonment. I don't want any of them executed."

So he numbered his prisoners from one to seventeen, according to the
cell each happened to be in, and he wrote a crime opposite each
number. The first was highway robbery, the next forgery, and after
that followed treason, smuggling, barn-burning, bribery, poaching,
usury, piracy, witchcraft, assault and battery, using false weights
and measures, burglary, counterfeiting, robbing hen-roosts,
conspiracy, and poisoning his grandmother by proxy.

This report was scarcely finished when the Potentate returned. He was
very much surprised to find that seventeen prisoners had come in
since his previous visit, and he read the report with interest.

"Here is one who ought to be executed," he said, referring to Number
Seventeen. "And how did he poison his grandmother by proxy? Did he
get another woman to be poisoned in her stead? Or did he employ some
one to act in his place as th