hurt me!"

"The stones were not as big as mountains, sire," said the Prince with a
smile. "They were, indeed, no larger than your head."

"Are you sure about that?" asked Rinkitink.

"Quite sure, Your Majesty."

"How deceptive those things are!" sighed the King. "This argument
reminds me of the story of Tom Tick, which my father used to tell."

"I have never heard that story," Inga answered.

"Well, as he told it, it ran like this:

"When Tom walked out, the sky to spy,
A naughty gnat flew in his eye;
But Tom knew not it was a gnat--
He thought, at first, it was a cat.

"And then, it felt so very big,
He thought it surely was a pig
Till, standing still to hear it grunt,
He cried: 'Why, it's an elephunt!'

"But--when the gnat flew out again
And Tom was free from all his pain,
He said: 'There flew into my eye
A leetle, teenty-tiny fly.'"

"Indeed," said Inga, laughing, "the gnat was much like your stones that
seemed as big as mountains."

After their dinner they inspected the palace, which was filled with
valuable goods stolen by King Gos from many nations. But the day's
events had tired them and they retired early to their big sleeping
apartment.

"In the morning," said the boy to Rinkitink, as he was undressing for
bed, "I shall begin the search for my father and mother and the people
of Pingaree. And, when they are found and rescued, we will all go home
again, and be as happy as we were before."

They carefully bolted the door of their room, that no one might enter,
and then got into their beds, where Rinkitink fell asleep in an
instant. The boy lay awake for a while thinking over the day's
adventures, but presently he fell sound asleep also, and so weary was
he that nothing disturbed his slumber until he awakened next morning
with a ray of sunshine in his eyes, which had crept into the room
through the open window by King Rinkitink's bed.

Resolving to begin the search for his parents without any unnecessary
delay, Inga at once got out of bed and began to dress himself, while
Rinkitink, in the other bed, was still sleeping peacefully. But when
the boy had put on both his stockings and began looking for his shoes,
he could find but one of them. The left shoe, that containing the Pink
Pearl, was missing.

Filled with anxiety at this discovery, Inga searched through the entire
room, looking underneath the beds and divans and chairs and behind the
draperies and in the corn