Page:The Floating Prince - Frank R Stockton.djvu/98

Rh answer to it in the whole world. It was only yesterday that I promised Old Riddler that I would never guess another riddle, and here I've done it! It's too bad!"

"I don't think it is," cried Huckleberry, waving his little cap around by the tassel. "It's all very well for father not to want people to guess his riddles, because they've got answers and he knows what they are. But I would never have known that any of mine had an answer if you hadn't guessed this one. If you had had a riddle like this one, wouldn't you have been glad to have some one tell you the answer?"

"Yes, I would," said Lois.

"Well, then, my good girl, remember this: If a thing gives you pleasure, it's very likely that it will give somebody else pleasure. So let somebody else have a chance, and the next time you hear a riddle that you think the owner has no answer for, guess it for him, if you can." [sic] Good-by!"

And away went Master Huckleberry, skipping and singing and snapping his fingers and twirling his cap, until he came to a wide crack in the ground, when he rolled himself up like a huckleberry dumpling, and went tumbling and bouncing down into the underground home of the gnomes.

"Get out of the way!" said he to the gnomes he passed, as he proudly strode to his father's apartments. "I'm going to make a report. For the first time in my life I've taught somebody something." When Huckleberry left her, the goose-girl stood silently in the midst of her geese. Her brow was overcast.

"How's anybody to do two things that can't both be done?" she exclaimed at last. "I'll have nothing more to do with riddles as long as I live."