The Fairy looked at him angrily.

"They can't make you say things you don't want to say," he explained.

The Fairy stamped her foot.

"Be a toad," she said, waving her wand. "A nasty, horrid, crawling toad."

"I've always wanted--" began Merriwig--"to be a toad," he ended from lower down.

"Well?" said the Fairy.

"I don't think much of Fairies," said the King. "I don't think they're very powerful." He waited for the Fairy to look at him, but she pretended to be thinking of something else. After waiting a minute or two, he added, "They can't make you say things you don't want to say."

The Fairy stamped her foot still more angrily, and moved her wand a third time.

"Be silent!" she commanded. "And stay silent for ever!"

There was no sound in the forest. The Fairy looked at the blue sky through the green roof above her; she looked through the tall trunks of the trees to the King's castle beyond; her eyes fell upon the little glade on her left, upon the mossy bank on her right . . . but she would not look down to the toad at her feet.

No, she wouldn't. . . .

She wouldn't. . . .

And yet----

It was too much for her. She could resist no longer. She looked at the nasty, horrid, crawling toad, the dumb toad at her feet that was once a King.

And, catching her eye, the toad--winked.

Some winks are more expressive than others. The Fairy knew quite well what this one meant. It meant:

"I don't think much of Fairies. I don't think they're very powerful. They can't make you say things you don't want to say."

The Fairy waved her wand in disgust.

"Oh, be a King again," she said impatiently, and vanished.

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