{Drifting in a light breeze: p66.jpg} But, as too often occurs, they were taking one particular fly which was on the water, and would look at nothing else. "Oh, bother them!" cried Ricardo. "I can't find a fly in my book in the least like that little black one they are feeding on!" He tried half-a-dozen different fly-hooks, but all to no purpose; he lost his temper, got his tackle entangled in Jaqueline's hair and then in the landing-net; and, though such a big boy, he was nearly crying with vexation. The Princess Jaqueline, with great pains and patience, disentangled the casting line, first from her hair, which Ricardo was anxious to cut (the great stupid oaf,--her pretty hair!) then from the landing-net; but Dick had grown sulky. "It's no use," he said; "I have not a fly that will suit. Let's go home," and he threw a tin can at a rising trout. "Now, Dick," said Jaqueline, "you know I can help you. I did not learn magic for nothing. Just you look the other way for a minute or two, and you will find the right fly at the end of your line." Dick turned his head away (it is not proper to look on at magical arts), and then in a moment, saw the right hook on his cast; but Jaqueline was not in the boat. She had turned herself into an artificial fly (a small black gnat), and Dick might set to his sport again. "What a trump that girl is," he said aloud. "Clever, too!" and he began casting. He got a trout every cast, great big ones, over a pound, and soon he had a basketful. But he began to feel rather bored. "There's not much fun taking them," he said, "when they are so silly." At that very moment he noticed that the fly was off his cast, and Jaqueline was sitting at the oars. "You see, Ricardo," she said, "I was right after all. There is not much pleasure in sport that is easy and certain. Now, apply this moral to dragon-killing with magic instruments. It may be useful when one is obliged to defend oneself, but surely a prince ought not to give his whole time to nothing else!" Dick had no answer ready, so he only grumbled: "You're always preaching at me, Jack; everybody always is. I seem to have been born just to be preached at." Some people are; and it does grow rather tedious in the long run. But perhaps what Jaqueline said may have made some impression on Ricardo, for he stuck to his books for weeks, and was got into decimal fractions and Euclid. All this, of course, pleased the king very much, and he began to entertain hopes of Ricardo's becoming a wise and learned prince, and a credit to his illustrious family.