midgets should prosper, and override every sort of evil, in the Isles of Wonder and all other extra-mundane lands.”

“But is it fair, my friend, is it even respectful, to the august and venerable powers of iniquity, that these whippersnappers—?”

Gonfal replied: “Nobody contends, I assure you, that such easy conquests are quite sportsmanlike. Nevertheless, they are the prerogatives of the third son of 32a king. So, as a realist, madame, I perforce concede that fortune, hereabouts, regards these third sons with a fixed grin of approval. Even foxes and ants and ovens and broomsticks put aside their customary taciturnity, to favor these royal imps with invaluable advice: all giants and three-headed serpents must, I daresay, confront them with a half-guilty sense of committing felo-de-se: and at every turn of the road waits an enamored golden-haired princess.”

32

Now not every one of these truisms appeared, to the dark eyes of Morvyth, wholly satisfactory.

“Blondes do not last,” said Morvyth, “and I am a queen.”

“That is true,” Gonfal admitted. “I am not certain every third prince prospers with a queen. I can recall no authority upon the point.”

“My friend, there is not any doubt that these dauntless champions have prospered everywhere. And it is another trouble for me now to decide which one has fetched back the treasure that is worthiest to be my bridal gift.”

Gonfal pursed up his remarkably red and soft-looking lips. He regarded the young Queen for a brief while, and throughout that while he wore his odd air of considering an amusing matter which was of no great importance.

“Madame,” Gonfal then said, “I would distinguish. To be worthiest, a thing must first be worthy.”

33At this the slender brows of Morvyth went up. “But upon that ebony table, my friend, are potent magics which control all the wealth of the world.”

33

“I do not dispute that. I merely marvel—as a perhaps unpractical realist,—how such wealth can be termed a gift, when it at utmost is but a loan.”

“Now do you tell me,” commanded Morvyth, “just what that means!”

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