ive them a chance to seize
the throne. He treated his people carelessly and his servants cruelly,
and everything he wanted he felt that he must have.

The ring annoyed him terribly; it was embarrassing for a king to have a
drop of blood on his finger all the time! At last he took the ring off
and put it out of sight. Then he thought he should be perfectly happy,
having his own way; but instead, he grew more unhappy as he grew less
good. Whenever he was crossed, or could not have his own way
instantly, he flew into a passion.

Finally, he wanted something that he really could not have. This time
it was a most beautiful young girl, named Zelia; the prince saw her,
and loved her so much that he wanted at once to make her his queen. To
his great astonishment, she refused.

"Am I not pleasing to you?" asked the prince in surprise.

"You are very handsome, very charming, Prince," said Zelia; "but you
are not like the good king, your father; I fear you would make me very
miserable if I were your queen."

In a great rage, Prince Cherry ordered the young girl put in prison;
and the key of her dungeon he kept. He told one of his friends, a
wicked man who flattered him for his own purposes, about the thing, and
asked his advice.

"Are you not king?" said the bad friend, "May you not do as you will?
Keep the girl in a dungeon till she does as you command, and if she
will not, sell her as a slave."

"But would it not be a disgrace for me to harm an innocent creature?"
said the prince.

"It would be a disgrace to you to have it said that one of your
subjects dared disobey you!" said the courtier.

He had cleverly touched the Prince's worst trait, his pride. Prince
Cherry went at once to Zelia's dungeon, prepared to do this cruel thing.

Zelia was gone. No one had the key save the prince himself; yet she
was gone. The only person who could have dared to help her, thought the
prince, was his old tutor, Suliman, the only man left who ever rebuked
him for anything. In fury, he ordered Suliman to be put in fetters and
brought before him.

As his servants left him, to carry out the wicked order, there was a
clash, as of thunder, in the room, and then a blinding light. Fairy
Candide stood before him. Her beautiful face was stern, and her silver
voice rang like a trumpet, as she said, "Wicked and selfish prince, you
have become baser than the beasts you hunt; you are furious as a lion,
revengeful as a serpent, greedy