to see the joke
that the King had made. But when I got there, your Majesty, I said it
was much too dark to see anything and I was not at all surprised that
no one could see the King's jokes; and the King was so angry that he
ordered me to be poked through the sun again; and here I am, please
your Majesty."

Her Majesty smiled approvingly.

"You have made a joke worth two of the Wymp King's," she said; "and I
shall appoint you as a reward to go to Wympland with a message from me.
Do not trouble to thank me," she added, as the round dimpled face of
Capricious grew a little crestfallen, "for there is no time. The sun
is just going to rise, and the moment it is above the horizon you must
go straight through it once more and tell the King that I invite him to
breakfast in Fairyland. And now I must be off, for I have a smile to
paint on the face of every child in the world before it wakes."

So the Fairy Queen flew away to paint a million or two of the most
beautiful smiles in the world; and the other fairies popped down
through the roof and did all the blacksmith's work for him and dropped
a nice dream on his pillow just to show they had been there; and
Capricious sat on the edge of the chimney-pot, until the sun came above
the horizon and it was time for her to take the Queen's message to
Wympland.

The Wymp King knew better than to refuse the Queen's invitation to
breakfast; so he yawned three hundred and fifty-four times, rubbed his
eyes to keep them open--for it is a well-known thing that the Wymp King
is nearly always asleep--and started off in the direction of Fairyland.
The Queen was as pleased to see him as if he had never been naughty at
all; but, of course, she was far too much of a Queen to let him guess
that he was really there to be scolded. So she made him sit next to
her at breakfast, and gave him a cup of stinging-nettle tea to keep him
awake, and allowed him to make as many jokes as he pleased. The Wymp
King, in consequence, was extremely happy; and when the meal was over
and the Queen began to look stern, he had to think very hard indeed
before he remembered that he was nothing but a naughty little wymp
after all.

"This state of things cannot go on," said the Fairy Queen. "What is
the use of my being a Queen if I am not to be obeyed?"

"Your Majesty's chief use is to look like a Queen and to forgive your
disobedient subjects," said the Wymp King, who had taken so much
stinging-nettle tea that