"Oh, well, if it wasn't a joke, that's another matter. Not that I _should_ have called it a joke myself, but I thought you meant it for one," said the Wymp, more cheerfully. "Now why have you come up here at all?" She hastened to tell him about the Prince, and how much he had been changed by the Wymps' gift, and how she wanted to intercede for him; and her voice grew so sad as she thought about it all that the Wymp had to turn round and shout at her. "Don't get gloomy," he cried, turning several somersaults in his agitation. "Nobody is ever gloomy in the land of the Wymps. Make another bad joke if you like, but stop being dreary--_do_." At this moment they suddenly came upon the Wymp King, who was sitting asleep on his throne all by himself. He was just like the other Wymps, except that he looked too lazy to turn somersaults, and he had no laughter wrinkles at all. "Is that the King? He doesn't look much like a King," whispered Lady Daffany. "He hasn't got to look like a King," said the Wymp. "We choose our Kings because they are harmless, and don't want to make jokes, and will keep out of the way. We once had a King who looked like a King--we used to live in the sun then--but he did so much mischief that the sun people turned us out, and we have had to live at the back of the sun ever since." Lady Daffany felt glad that the kind of King she was accustomed to _did_ look like a King, but she had no time to say so, for just then the Wymp jumped on the throne and woke up the King by shouting in his ear. "Does any one want anything?" asked the Wymp King, waking up with a jerk, and putting on his crown and his spectacles. Lady Daffany dropped on her knees in front of the throne and tried not to feel frightened. "Please, your Majesty--" she began, timidly. "Who is she talking to?" cried the Wymp King. He had a very gruff voice, through living in a yellow fog all his life; and he spoke so loudly that he completely drowned the rest of her speech. "Say what you want, and don't give him any titles; he's not used to them," whispered the Wymp. "Why, I don't believe he is a King at all," said Lady Daffany, standing up again. "Who says I'm not a King at all?" shouted the Wymp King, angrily. "If you make any more of your bad jokes, I won't try to help you at all," said the Wymp. "Why don't you say what you want at once?" So Lady Daffany set to work and told the whole of her story, and begged the Wymp King to take back his fatal gift so that the Prince should no longer tell people what he thought about them until they all came to dislike him. When she had finished, the King gave a great yawn and took off his crown. "Doesn't he tell them the truth then?" he asked, sleepily. "Yes, I--I suppose so," she answered, doubtfully. "Then why should they mind?" said the Wymp King. Lady Daffany shook her head. "They do mind," she said.