ey are trying to do the Princess Bertha, by pushing her aside, who is
the firstborn, because they deem her too small to take her own part? But
ye noble knights, who love justice, will assert her claim to the crown
throughout the kingdom, and defeat the insolent champions hired by her
envious sisters, who would defraud their own royal sovereign.

"Proclaim throughout the land that ye will have none other to rule over
you but the rightful heiress--the Princess Bertha."

After the princess's harangue, the showman, who had long dropped the
other puppets in amazement, believing that none other than a fairy trod
his stage, stood with his eyes and mouth wide open, knowing not what to
do. The spectators were in ecstasies at so beautiful and so
natural-looking a puppet, while the crowd increased ten-fold.

The serving man in whose pocket Bertha had hidden herself had never seen
the princess, for he was not one of the servants of the palace; besides
which, the diminutive princess was usually hidden from the vulgar gaze,
the family being rather ashamed of her than otherwise; but one among the
crowd, who happened to have seen the princess once or twice on rare
occasions at the palace, cried out, "By my troth, that is the Princess
Bertha herself, and none other! How comes it that she is made a puppet
of in this man's vile show? Citizens, I arrest this man for high
treason!"

The little princess, seeing the showman in danger, said to the
gentleman, "No, worthy sir; do this man no harm, seeing I came here by
my own free will, without his knowledge, for the purpose of making the
country acquainted with its future sovereign."

The gentleman pushed his way through the crowd, and was about to lay his
hand on the princess to bring her back to the palace, when a monkey near
at hand, also the property of the showman, and who happened at that
moment to be loose, seized the diminutive princess in his arms, and
clambering up the side of a house by the water spout, was soon out of
sight.

Now, when the news of this catastrophe reached the palace, the twin
princesses were delighted that harm was likely to befall their elder
sister, so that their right to the throne might be no longer disputed;
nevertheless they ordered a strict search to be made for the body of the
little princess.

Two parties, each headed by one of the princesses, started in different
directions to search for the missing sister, but for a long time nothing
was heard of