{Prigio reading a book: p11.jpg} Indeed, I cannot tell you how the prince was hated by all! He would go down into the kitchen, and show the cook how to make soup. He would visit the poor people's cottage, and teach them how to make the beds, and how to make plum-pudding out of turnip-tops, and venison cutlets out of rusty bacon. He showed the fencing-master how to fence, and the professional cricketer how to bowl, and instructed the rat-catcher in breeding terriers. He set sums to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and assured the Astronomer Royal that the sun does not go round the earth--which, for my part, I believe it does. The young ladies of the Court disliked dancing with him, in spite of his good looks, because he was always asking, "Have you read this?" and "Have you read that?"--and when they said they hadn't, he sneered; and when they said they _had_, he found them out. He found out all his tutors and masters in the same horrid way; correcting the accent of his French teacher, and trying to get his German tutor not to eat peas with his knife. He also endeavoured to teach the queen-dowager, his grandmother, an art with which she had long been perfectly familiar! In fact, he knew everything better than anybody else; and the worst of it was that he _did_: and he was never in the wrong, and he always said, "Didn't I tell you so?" And, what was more, he _had_! As time went on, Prince Prigio had two younger brothers, whom everybody liked. They were not a bit clever, but jolly. Prince Alphonso, the third son, was round, fat, good-humoured, and as brave as a lion. Prince Enrico, the second, was tall, thin, and a little sad, but _never_ too clever. Both were in love with two of their own cousins (with the approval of their dear parents); and all the world said, "What nice, unaffected princes they are!" But Prigio nearly got the country into several wars by being too clever for the foreign ambassadors. Now, as Pantouflia was a rich, lazy country, which hated fighting, this was very unpleasant, and did not make people love Prince Prigio any better. CHAPTER III. _About the Firedrake_. Of all the people who did not like Prigio, his own dear papa, King Grognio, disliked him most. For the king knew he was not clever, himself. When he was in the counting-house, counting out his money, and when he happened to say, "Sixteen shillings and fourteen and twopence are three pounds, fifteen," it made him wild to hear Prigio whisper, "One pound, ten and twopence"--which, of course, it _is_. And the king was afraid that Prigio would conspire, and get made king himself--which was the last thing Prigio really wanted. He much preferred to idle about, and know everything without seeming to take any trouble. {The King at his desk: p15.jpg}