e said haughtily:

'Give me the paper that I may sign it,' and they obeyed. What between
admiration for the Princess and annoyance at the hesitation shown by her
ambassadors the Prince was too much agitated to choose any other name
than the one by which he was always known. But when, after all the grand
titles of the other Princes, he simply wrote 'Mannikin,' the ambassadors
broke into shouts of laughter.

'Miserable wretches!' cried the Prince; 'but for the presence of that
lovely portrait I would cut off your heads.'

But he suddenly remembered that, after all, it _was_ a funny name, and
that he had not yet had time to make it famous; so he was calm, and
enquired the way to the Princess Sabella's country.

Though his heart did not fail him in the least, still he felt there were
many difficulties before him, and he resolved to set out at once,
without even taking leave of the Fairy, for fear she might try to stop
him. Everybody in the town who knew him made great fun of the idea of
Mannikin's undertaking such an expedition, and it even came to the ears
of the foolish King and Queen, who laughed over it more than any of the
others, without having an idea that the presumptuous Mannikin was their
only son!

[Illustration]

Meantime the Prince was travelling on, though the directions he had
received for his journey were none of the clearest.

'Four hundred leagues north of Mount Caucasus you will receive your
orders and instructions for the conquest of the Ice Mountain.'

Fine marching orders, those, for a man starting from a country near
where Japan is nowadays!

However, he fared eastward, avoiding all towns, lest the people should
laugh at his name, for, you see, he was not a very experienced
traveller, and had not yet learned to enjoy a joke even if it were
against himself. At night he slept in the woods, and at first he lived
upon wild fruits; but the Fairy, who was keeping a benevolent eye upon
him, thought that it would never do to let him be half-starved in that
way, so she took to feeding him with all sorts of good things while he
was asleep, and the Prince wondered very much that when he was awake he
never felt hungry! True to her plan the Fairy sent him various
adventures to prove his courage, and he came successfully through them
all, only in his last fight with a furious monster rather like a tiger
he had the ill luck to lose his horse. However, nothing daunted, he
struggled on on foot, and at last