Page:Margaret sherwood--The Princess Pourquoi.djvu/117

 'What 's the Microbe?" gasped the Princess.

"It 's worse than dragons, that 's what it is," said Auguste Philippe viciously.

"What does it do?" asked the Princess.

"It bites," answered the Prince. "It stays somewhere in the woods and swamps, and every year it eats a great number of youths and maidens, and old men and children. It 's always hungry."

"Why doesn't somebody go and kill it?" said the Princess.

"Dunno!" answered Auguste Philippe.

"What does it look like?"

"It has one great eye," answered the Prince unhesitatingly, knowing that life demanded that he should instruct the feminine mind whether he had information or