“Ma'am, if you please. I am a mother bird, and my name is Mag, and I shall be happy to tell you everything you want to know. For I know a great deal; and I enjoy talking. My family is of great antiquity; we have built in this palace for hundreds--that is to say, dozens of years. I am intimately acquainted with the king, the queen, and the little princes and princesses--also the maids of honor, and all the inhabitants of the city. I talk a good deal, but I always talk sense, and I daresay I should be exceedingly useful to a poor little ignorant boy like you.” “I am a prince,” said the other gently. “All right. And I am a magpie. You will find me a most respectable bird.” “I have no doubt of it,” was the polite answer--though he thought in his own mind that Mag must have a very good opinion of herself. But she was a lady and a stranger, so of course he was civil to her. She settled herself at his elbow, and began to chatter away, pointing out with one skinny claw, while she balanced herself on the other, every object of interest, evidently believing, as no doubt all its inhabitants did, that there was no capital in the world like the great metropolis of Nomansland. I have not seen it, and therefore cannot describe it, so we will just take it upon trust, and suppose it to be, like every other fine city, the finest city that ever was built. Mag said so--and of course she knew. Nevertheless, there were a few things in it which surprised Prince Dolor--and, as he had said, he could not understand them at all. One half the people seemed so happy and busy--hurrying up and down the full streets, or driving lazily along the parks in their grand carriages, while the other half were so wretched and miserable. “Can't the world be made a little more level? I would try to do it if I were a king.” “But you're not the king: only a little goose of a boy,” returned the magpie loftily. “And I'm here not to explain things, only to show them. Shall I show you the royal palace?” It was a very magnificent palace. It had terraces and gardens, battlements and towers. It extended over acres of ground, and had in it rooms enough to accommodate half the city. Its windows looked in all directions, but none of them had any particular view--except a small one, high up toward the roof, which looked out on the Beautiful Mountains. But since the queen died there it had been closed, boarded up, indeed, the magpie said. It was so little and inconvenient that nobody cared to live in it. Besides, the lower apartments, which had no view, were magnificent--worthy of being inhabited by the king. “I should like to see the king,” said Prince Dolor. CHAPTER VIII What, I wonder, would be people's idea of a king? What was Prince Dolor's?