Prince Vance: The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box — John Shaqi
Prince Vance: The Story of a Prince with a Court in His BoxBates, Arlo
Science
Prince Vance: The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box
Bates, Arlo
Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Fairies -- Juvenile fiction; Fantasy literature; Princes -- Juvenile fiction
"Good riddance to bad rubbish!" quoth the palace hound; "you will never
again put my meat up a tree where I cannot get it."
"Get out with you!" snapped the royal cat. "I'm glad you are turned out
of the house. Let us hope a body can take a nap in comfort now, without
having her tail stepped on or snuff sprinkled in her face."
"Don't trouble yourself ever to come back," screeched the peacock,
hoarsely. "For my part, I'm tired of having my handsomest tail-feathers
snatched out by the handful. I'm sure I trust I shall never set eyes on
you again."
So it was with all the animals in the royal gardens. The deer, the emus,
the gazelles, the swans, the flamingoes, the parrots, even his own
particular white mice and spotted guinea pigs, declared that they were
glad he was going, and hoped he might never come back any more. Not a
creature did anything but rejoice as the royal beggar was tumbled rudely
out from his own father's gardens and left standing alone in the
highway, already heartily sorry for his prank, and quite at his wits'
end as to what to do with the Court which he carried in his baggage.
[Illustration]
V
Considering that Prince Vance had never done anything at all for
himself, not even so much as to tie his own shoe-strings, it was a
pretty hard lot for him to be turned out into the world to get his own
living, and take care of the whole Court besides. At first he was almost
tempted to throw away the box and all his relatives with it; but
although of course he could not be expected to think so much of his
father and mother now that there was so very little of them to be fond
of, still under all his follies Vance had a good sort of heart, and so
he trudged away with the troublesome little Court strapped tightly to
his shoulders. I am not perfectly sure that he did not take some
pleasure in jolting it about, for I have more than once seen little folk
bang and jerk bundles they were made to carry against their wills. At
any rate, the King and the Queen and the Court came very near being
seasick upon dry land, from the jolting and rocking of this new manner
of travelling.
Prince Vance had not the least idea where he was going. He knew, of
course, that he wanted to find the Crushed Strawberry Wizard, but he did
not know where that individual lived, or how to go to work to find him;
so he only made his best pace to get away from the palace as fast as he
could, being afraid that the new king might repent of not having taken
his head from his shoulders, and send somebody after him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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