"Yes, my dear; but it wanted some wit, if I may say so, to do _that_, and Dick just goes at it hammer and tongs: anybody could do it. It's _intellect_ I miss in Ricardo. How am I to know whether he could make a good fight for it without all these fairy things? I wonder what the young rogue is about to-day? He'll be late for dinner, as usual, I daresay. I can't stand want of punctuality at meals," remarked his Majesty, which is a sign that he was growing old after all; for where is the fun of being expected always to come home in time for dinner when, perhaps, you are fishing, and the trout are rising splendidly? "Young people will be young people," said the queen. "If you are anxious about him, why don't you look for him in the magic crystal?" Now the magic crystal was a fairy present, a great ball of glass in which, if you looked, you saw the person you wanted to see, and what he was doing, however far away he might be, if he was on the earth at all. {21} "I'll just take a look at it," said the king; "it only wants three-quarters of an hour to dinner-time." His Majesty rose, and walked to the crystal globe, which was in a stand, like other globes. He stared into it, he turned it round and round, and Queen Rosalind saw him grow quite pale as he gazed. "I don't see him anywhere," said the king, "and I have looked everywhere. I do hope nothing has happened to the boy. He is so careless. If he dropped his Cap of Darkness in a fight with a giant, why who knows what might occur?" "Oh, 'Gio, how you frighten me!" said the queen. King Prigio was still turning the crystal globe. "Stop!" he cried; "I see a beautiful princess, fastened by iron chains to a rock beside the sea, in a lonely place. They must have fixed her up as a sacrifice to a sea-monster, like what's-her-name." This proves how anxious he was, or, being so clever and learned, he would have remembered that her name was Andromeda. "I bet Dick is not far off, where there is an adventure on hand. But where on earth can he be? . . . My word!" suddenly exclaimed the monarch, in obvious excitement. "What is it, dear?" cried the queen, with all the anxiety of a mother.