CHAPTER I. The Troubles of King Prigio. 

{Prince Ricardo and lady tied up: p13.jpg} 

"I'm sure I don't know what to do with that boy!" said King Prigio of Pantouflia. 

"If _you_ don't know, my dear," said Queen Rosalind, his illustrious consort, "I can't see what is to be done. You are so clever." 

The king and queen were sitting in the royal library, of which the shelves were full of the most delightful fairy books in all languages, all equally familiar to King Prigio. The queen could not read most of them herself, but the king used to read them aloud to her. A good many years had passed--seventeen, in fact--since Queen Rosalind was married, but you would not think it to look at her. Her grey eyes were as kind and soft and beautiful, her dark hair as dark, and her pretty colour as like a white rose blushing, as on the day when she was a bride. And she was as fond of the king as when he was only Prince Prigio, and he was as fond of her as on the night when he first met her at the ball. 

"No, I don't know what to do with Dick," said the king. 

He meant his son, Prince Ricardo, but he called him Dick in private. 

"I believe it's the fault of his education," his Majesty went on. "We have not brought him up rightly. These fairy books are at the bottom of his provoking behaviour," and he glanced round the shelves. "Now, when _I_ was a boy, my dear mother tried to prevent me from reading fairy books, because she did not believe in fairies." 
Who did the queen say was clever?
"If _you_ don't know, my dear," said Queen Rosalind, his illustrious consort, "I can't see what is to be done. You are so clever." 
