again."

Beppo was pale and trembling with agitation over the fearful effects of
that first tail-wagging. "You mustn't feel young!" said he.

"Why not?" asked the Cockatrice, with a piteous wail.

"There isn't room in the world for a Cockatrice to feel young nowadays,"
answered Beppo gravely.

"But, dear little master and benefactor," cried the Cockatrice, "what
did you wake me up for?"

"I don't know," replied Beppo, terribly perplexed. "I wouldn't have done
it had I known where your tail was."

"Where is it?" inquired the Cockatrice, with great interest. "It's right
underneath the city where I mean to be king," said Beppo; "and if you
move it the city will come down; and then I shall have nothing to be
king of."

"Very well," said the Cockatrice sadly; "I will wait!"

"Wait for what?" thought Beppo. "Waiting won't do any good." And he
began to think what he must do. "You lie quite still!" said he to the
Cockatrice. "Go to sleep, and I will still look after you."

"Oh, little master," said the Cockatrice, "but it is difficult to go to
sleep when the delicious trouble of spring is in one's tail! How long
does this city of yours mean to stay there? I am so alive that I find it
hard to shut an eye!"

"I will let the fires that keep you warm go down for a bit," said Beppo,
"and you mustn't eat so much grass; then you will feel better, and your
tail will be less of an anxiety."

And presently, when Beppo had let the fires which warmed him get low,
and had let time go by without bringing him any fresh fodder, the
Cockatrice dozed off into an uneasy, prehistoric slumber.

Then Beppo, weeping bitterly over his treachery to the poor beast which
had trusted him, raked open the fires and stamped out the embers; and,
leaving the poor Cockatrice to get cold, ran down the hill as fast as he
could to the city he had saved--the city of which he meant to be king.

He had been away a good many days, but the boys in the street were still
on the watch for him. He told them how he had saved the city from the
earth-quake; and they beat him from the city gate to his father's door.
He told his own father how he had saved the city; and his father beat
him from his own door to the city gate. Nobody believed him.

He lay outside the town walls till it was dark, all smarting with his
aches and pains; then, when nobody could see him, he got up and very
miserably made his way back to the cave on the hill. And all the way he
said t