'Ah! but I mean something horrid,' said the Princess. 'I expect uncle's going to make some nasty new law about me. Last time it was: "The Princess is only to wear a white frock on the first Sunday in the month." He said it was economy, but I know it was only spite.' 'You mustn't say that, dear,' said nurse. 'You know your rosy and bluey frocks are just as pretty as the white;' but in her heart she agreed with the Princess Everilda. The Princess's father and mother had died when she was quite little, and her uncle was Regent. Now, you will have noticed that there is something about uncles which makes it impossible for them to be good in fairy stories. So of course this uncle was bad, as bad as he could be, and everyone hated him. In fact, though it was now, as I have said, everybody's teatime, nobody was making any tea: instead they were making a revolution. And just as the Princess was looking at the half-moon-shaped hole left by her first bite into her first piece of bread-and-butter, the good Professor burst into the nursery with his great gray wig all on one side, crying out in a very loud and very choky voice: 'The revolution! It's come at last. I _knew_ the people would never stand that last tax on soap.' 'The Princess!' said nurse, turning very pale. 'Yes, I know,' said the Professor. 'There's a boat on the canal, blue sails with gold letters "P.P."--Pupil of the Professor. It's waiting. You go down there at once. I'll take the Princess out down the back stairs.' He caught the Princess by her pink bread-and-buttery hand, and dragged her away. 'Hurry, my dear,' he panted; 'it's as much as your life is worth to delay a minute.' But he himself delayed quite three minutes, and that was one minute too long. He had just run into the palace library for the manuscript of his life's work, 'Everything Easily Explained,' when the revolutionary crowd burst in, shouting 'Liberty and Soap!' and caught him. They did not see the Princess Everilda, because he had just time, when he heard them coming, to throw a red and green crochet antimacassar over her, and to hide her behind an armchair. 'When they've taken me away, go down the back stairs, and try to find the boat,' he whispered, just before they came and took him away. And then Everilda was left alone. When everything was quiet, she said to herself: 'Now, you mustn't cry; you must do as you're told.' And she went down the palace back-stairs, and out through the palace kitchen into the street. She had never set foot in the streets before, but she had been driven through them in a coach with four white horses, and she knew the way to the canal. The canal boat with the blue sails was waiting, and she would have got to it safely enough, but she heard a rattling sound, and when she looked she saw two boys tying an old rusty kettle to a cat's tail. 'You horrid boys!' she said; 'let poor pussy alone.' 'Not us,' said the boys.