had pushed a little boy over the
edge of the sea-wall, kicked several others; how he had hit little girls
with their own spades and pulled the hair of others; how he never passed
a carefully built castle without kicking a breach in it, and always threw
any spades or buckets he could lay hands on far into the sea.

Pollyooly observed this terror with the unimpressed eye of a connoisseur.
When she had lived with her Aunt Hannah in the little slum at the back of
the King's Bench Walk, she had fought many battles with the small boys of
Alsatia; and she was not at all impressed by the physique of the prince.
She was of the opinion that Henry Wiggins would make very short work of
him; and she could hold Henry Wiggins (by the hair) with her left hand
and smack him with her right till she was nearly as tired of smacking as
he was of being smacked. She knew that she could because she had done it.

The prince came to the castle they themselves had been building and
kicked down one wall of it.

"If only you weren't a prince, I'd teach you, my fine young gentleman,"
said the nurse softly.

"You mind the Lump! I'll go and smack him hard!" cried Pollyooly with
eager confidence.

"No! No! He's a _prince_! You mustn't touch a _prince_, miss!" cried
the nurse in a tone of the last horror, gripping Pollyooly's wrist
tightly. "Besides, he'd hurt you. He's a very nasty, spiteful little
boy."

"Oh, I don't mind him! I'm not afraid of a little boy like that!" cried
Pollyooly; and she tugged at the restraining grip, hard but in vain,
eying the pest with the bright light of battle in her eyes.

"I wouldn't let my children play with him like some people do just
because he's a prince--not was it ever so. I should be frightened all
the time," said the nurse.

"If he ever touches the Lump, I'll teach him!" Said Pollyooly with a
cold, impressive ferocity.

"If ever he touches one of us, papa will spank him hard. Papa doesn't
care much for princes," said Kathleen.

"I should think he didn't--if they're like that," said Pollyooly with
conviction.

They watched the devastating royal progress with indignant eyes. The
back view of the prince was nearly as unpleasant as the front, for he
slouched along with his fat little figure hunched forward in a very ugly
fashion. The children fled before him as he came, and from the shelter
of their nurses, or their mothers, angrily watched him destroy the
castles they had built. But most