ince of the Diamond Mountains, a very nice steady young man with a
good income. But when he suggested the match to the Princess she
declined it, and the Magician, who was standing at the foot of the
throne steps loaded with chains, clattered forward and said:

'Your Majesty, will you spare my life if I tell you something you don't
know?'

The King, who was a very inquisitive man, said 'Yes.'

'Then know,' said Taykin, 'that the Princess won't marry _your_ choice,
because she's made one of her own--my apprentice.'

The Princess meant to have told her father this when she had got him
alone and in a good temper. But now he was in a bad temper, and in full
audience.

The apprentice was dragged in, and all the Princess's agonized pleadings
only got this out of the King--

'All right. I won't hang him. He shall be best man at your wedding.'

Then the King took his daughter's hand and set her in the middle of the
hall, and set the Prince of the Diamond Mountains on her right and the
apprentice on her left. Then he said:

'I will spare the life of this aspiring youth on your left if you'll
promise never to speak to him again, and if you'll promise to marry the
gentleman on your right before tea this afternoon.'

The wretched Princess looked at her lover, and his lips formed the word
'Promise.'

So she said: 'I promise never to speak to the gentleman on my left and
to marry the gentleman on my right before tea to-day,' and held out her
hand to the Prince of the Diamond Mountains.

Then suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, the Prince of the Diamond
Mountains was on her left, and her hand was held by her own Prince, who
stood at her right hand. And yet nobody seemed to have moved. It was the
purest and most high-class magic.

'Dished,' cried the King, 'absolutely dished!'

'A mere trifle,' said the apprentice modestly. 'I've got Taykin's magic
recipe book, as well as his heart.'

'Well, we must make the best of it, I suppose,' said the King crossly.
'Bless you, my children.'

He was less cross when it was explained to him that the apprentice was
really the Prince of the Fortunate Islands, and a much better match than
the Prince of the Diamond Mountains, and he was quite in a good temper
by the time the nurse threw herself in front of the throne and begged
the King to let the Magician off altogether--chiefly on the ground that
when he was a baby he was the dearest little duck that ever was, in the
prettiest plai