Page:Oswald Bastable and Others - Nesbit.djvu/408

358 Sunday clothes and went up to the palace, and a great, red-faced, burly fellow he was.

The King and all the Court were assembled to see the archer make the Princess her own size again, though nobody believed he could do it.

The King was on his throne, and Pandora, still flower-fairy size, was sitting on one of the carved gold flowers that adorned the throne's right arm.

The archer bowed to the King and the Court, and to the Princess, though he could not see her.

Then he looked round the crowded throne-room and said:

'Look here, your Majesty, this will never do.'

'Eh?' said the King.

'Magic can't be done in this sort of public way. I must be left alone with the Princess. No; I can't have anyone bothering round. Not even you, your Majesty.'

The King was rather offended, but the Princess got to his ear and whispered, and then he gave the order for the throne-room to be cleared; and when that was done, he set the tiny Princess on the table, and went away himself and shut the door honourably behind him.

Then the archer said: