“Now don’t cry, my dear!” begged Grampa, scowling reprovingly at Pudge and patting Mrs Sew-and-Sew on the shoulder. “Having no head really saves one no end of trouble. No face to wash! No more headaches, no ear aches, no tooth aches!” Grampa’s voice grew more and more cheerful. “No lectures to listen to, no spectacles to hunt, no hair to lose, no more colds to catch in it. Why he is really better off without a head!” But Mrs Sew-and-Sew refused to be comforted and rocking to and fro moaned, “What shall we do! What shall we do? What shall we do?” “I tell you,” proposed Pudge, pursing up his lips importantly. “Let’s all have a strong cup of coffee.” As this seemed a sensible suggestion they all filed into the big red kitchen of the castle, leaving Fumbo kicking his heels against the stone pillar. CHAPTER 2 The Wise Man Speaks “I suppose,” sighed the old soldier, stirring his coffee with the handle of his sword, “it would do no good to hunt for the King’s head in the garden?” Drying out before the blazing fire in the kitchen stove and sipping Mrs Sew-and-Sew’s fragrant coffee the little company had grown more calm. “I’ll just have a look,” said Prince Tatters, pushing back his chair, but the old Wise Man shook an impatient finger at the very idea of such a thing. “When a King’s head goes off it goes off,” declared Pudge huskily—“Way off as far off as it can go.” “How far is that?” asked the old soldier. “And—” “Hush, I am thinking,” wheezed Pudge, ruffling up his hair with one hand and holding out his coffee cup with the other. “I am thinking and presently I shall speak. Another cup of coffee, ma’am!” This was his seventh cup and after he had sipped it deliberately, scraped all the sugar out of the bottom and licked the spoon, he set down both cup and saucer, flung up his hands and spoke. “Let Prince Tatters go in search of his father’s head,” said the old Wise Man of Ragbad. “Let him seek at the same time his fortune, or a Princess with a fortune, for otherwise he will end as a common rag-picker.” “But suppose,” objected Grampa, who tho’ an old bachelor himself had romantic ideas about marriage, “suppose he cannot love a Princess with a fortune. Suppose—” “It is not wisdom to suppose!” sniffed Pudge. “Hush! I am thinking and presently I shall speak again.” He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his forehead and after a short silence, during which Mrs Sew-and-Sew took a quick swallow of coffee and Grampa a hasty pinch of snuff, he spoke again. “It is the rainy day,” announced Pudge in his most solemn voice, “the rainy day I have long predicted. As the King has lost his head we must ourselves see what he has saved up for it. Come!” Marching to the King’s best bed chamber, Pudge flung open the cupboard and there beside Fumbo’s worn cloak hung the only thing he had saved up for a rainy day—a huge red umbrella.