Page:The Floating Prince - Frank R Stockton.djvu/88

Rh And at that, the crop being all in, the whole country, with a shout of joy, went to work to play.

There were no gayer people to be seen than Corette and the Condensed Pirate. Some of his friends called this good man by his old name, but he corrected them.

"I am reformed, all the same," he said, "but do not call me by that name. I shall never be able to separate it from its associations with tidies. And with them I am done for ever. Owing to circumstances, I do not need to be depressed."

The captain of the ship never stopped off the coast for a load of tidies. Perhaps he did not care to come near the house of his former captor, for fear that he might forget himself again, and take the ship a second time. But if the captain had come, it is not likely that his men would have found the cottage of the Condensed Pirate, unless they had landed at the very spot where it stood.

And it so happened that no one ever noticed this country after it was condensed. Passing ships could not come near enough to see such a very little place, and there never were any very good roads to it by land.

But the people continued to be happy and prosperous, and they kept up the celebration of Sweet Marjoram Day as gayly as when they were all ordinary-sized people.

In the whole country there were only two persons, Corette and the Pirate, who really believed that they were condensed.