"I hope, Sidney," she began later, as he joined her in the Royal Bedchamber, "I hope you have treated the gentlemen who undressed you with proper consideration. It is _so_ important.... Good gracious! What's that you've got on? A night-cap?" "Those--er--noblemen seemed to consider it the correct thing, my love, and they've put me on this night-gown, too." "I see they have. Embroidered all over with impossible animals. You look a perfect _sight_ in it!" "I'm told they're--er--hippogriffs, my dear, the--ah--Royal Crest or emblem or something. I should have much preferred pyjamas myself. But it seems they are not procurable here." "Everything in this country is in a disgracefully backward state!" declared the Queen; "and I can see I shall have hard work to bring it up to my ideas of what is proper. I shall _begin_ by putting that old Mrs. Fogleplug in her proper place." "I should be careful, my dear," advised King Sidney. "After all, you know, she's by way of being a Fairy." "So she _says_! But, Fairy or no Fairy, she's much too familiar. And if she cannot conform to my rules, she will have to go, that's all." "Well, my dear, I daresay when you put it to her like that," began the King, who had by this time succeeded in clambering into the immense bed, and whose head was already buried in an enormous pillow. "As I was saying," he continued hazily, "put it to her in--in that way, and--and--no doubt ... very probably ... no reason to suppose ... any...." But here his voice sank into an unintelligible murmur, until it rose presently into his first, but not by any means last, snore in the character of monarch. CHAPTER VI CARES OF STATE Queen Selina was as good as her word. The first thing after breakfast the next morning she retired to her Bower, and sent a summons to the Court Godmother, desiring her immediate attendance. King Sidney was engaged in interviewing the Lord Treasurer on the subject of the Royal revenue. The Crown Prince and Princess Edna were strolling on the terrace, and Daphne had discovered the board and pieces of a game something between Chess and Halma, the rules of which she and Princess Ruby were learning under the instruction of the Countess von Haulemaennerschen. So that the Queen, having taken care not to disturb any of her ladies-in-waiting, could count upon being able to deal faithfully with the obnoxious old Fairy without fear of interruption. "Well, my dear," began the latter, as soon as she appeared, "I hope you passed a comfortable night?" "I don't know when I passed a _more_ uncomfortable one, Mrs. Fogleplug. That is _one_ of the things I wished to speak to you about. After being accustomed as I have to a spring mattress, all those great feather beds made it simply impossible to get a wink of sleep!"