is the way misfortune will come by: but there are things
misfortune comes after as surely as night comes after day. For instance,
if you let all the water boil away, the kettle will have a hole burnt in
it. If you leave the bath taps running and the waste-pipe closed, the
stairs of your house will, sooner or later, resemble Niagara. If you
leave your purse at home, you won't have it with you when you want to
pay your tram-fare. And if you throw lighted wax matches at your muslin
curtains, your parent will most likely have to pay five pounds to the
fire engines for coming round and blowing the fire out with a wet hose.
Also if you are a king and do not invite the wicked fairy to your
christening parties, she will come all the same. And if you do ask the
wicked fairy, she will come, and in either case it will be the worse for
the new princess. So what is a poor monarch to do? Of course there is
one way out of the difficulty, and that is not to have a christening
party at all. But this offends all the good fairies, and then where are
you?

All these reflections had presented themselves to the minds of King
Ozymandias and his Queen, and neither of them could deny that they were
in a most awkward situation. They were 'talking it over' for the
hundredth time on the palace terrace where the pomegranates and
oleanders grew in green tubs and the marble balustrade is overgrown with
roses, red and white and pink and yellow. On the lower terrace the royal
nurse was walking up and down with the baby princess that all the fuss
was about. The Queen's eyes followed the baby admiringly.

'The darling!' she said. 'Oh, Ozymandias, don't you sometimes wish we'd
been poor people?'

'Never!' said the King decidedly.

'Well, I do,' said the Queen; 'then we could have had just you and me
and your sister at the christening, and no fear of--oh! I've thought of
something.'

The King's patient expression showed that he did not think it likely
that she would have thought of anything useful; but at the first five
words his expression changed. You would have said that he pricked up his
ears, if kings had ears that could be pricked up. What she said was--

'Let's have a secret christening.'

'How?' asked the King.

The Queen was gazing in the direction of the baby with what is called a
'far away look' in her eyes.

'Wait a minute,' she said slowly. 'I see it all--yes--we'll have the
party in the cellars--you know they're splendid.'

'My g