“Let me see the prophecy,” he demanded, holding out his hand. Abrog produced a crumpled parchment and after one glance the old Peer covered his face and sank groaning into his enormous arm chair. The Forgetful Poet had read over his shoulder and instantly burst into all the melancholy poems he knew. “Oh, hush!” begged the old monarch at last, “and you,” he waved wildly at the prophet, “can you do nothing but run ’round that table like a merry-go-round goat?” “I could marry the Princess myself,” rasped Abrog, coming to a sudden standstill before the Peer. “If she were already married to me, a monster could not marry her,” he leered triumphantly. “To _you_!” shrieked Percy Vere, crushing his muffin to a pulp. “You weazened, wild, old, whiskered dunce, Be off! Be gone! Get out, at—at—at—at—” Percy began hopping about on one foot groaning, “What’s the word, what’s the word?” “Once!” finished Peer Haps, mopping his forehead and glaring at Abrog, for he was stunned at the old man’s suggestion. “It wouldn’t do at all,” he muttered gloomily. “Why, you’re a thousand years old if you’re a day, and she’s the only daughter I’ve got.” “Well, you won’t have her long,” sneered Abrog, gathering his robe about him. His black eyes gleamed wickedly from beneath their bushy brows. He was furiously angry, but quickly hiding his feelings he began to move slowly toward the door. Halfway there he paused. “Since you refuse my first solution of the difficulty, I will endeavor to think of another one. I used to know a little magic,” he wheezed craftily. “I will retire to my tower to think.” Peer Haps nodded absently. He was too dazed to think himself and could only mutter over and over, “A monster! A monster! My daughter! A monster!” “The fellow’s a fool!” choked Percy Vere. “He’s as full of ideas as a dish pan. Why he’s a monster himself!” “But there’s something in what he says,” groaned the old Peer unhappily. “If my daughter were already married when this monster came, he could not carry her off. I have it! Percy, we’ll marry the Princess at once, to the likeliest lad in Perhaps City.” “To me!” cried the Forgetful Poet, tossing back his long locks and sticking out his chest complacently. “Well—er,” the old monarch looked a trifle embarrassed, “you’re hardly the man to marry and settle down to a humdrum royal existence. I was thinking of young Perix.” “You’re right,” agreed Percy, mollified at once. “Marriage would interfere with my career, O Peer. Shall I fetch our pretty little Princess?” “Yes, call her at once,” begged Peer Haps, clasping and unclasping his hands, “but don’t frighten her, Percy my boy, no talk of marriage or monsters!” Percy felt that the only thing he could do, under the circumstances, was to lapse into verse. “I go, I go, on heel and toe To fetch the sweetest girl I know, The Princess of Perhaps City, As sweet as sugar full of tea!”