"_Never_," shouted Pranc, as loud as he could. "Never," repeated the Chairman of the Exterminating Committee, looking rather pained. "Oh, but I say that won't do at all. You _must_ fix a time. We can't cut your head off unless you do. It wouldn't be legal." "Indeed," said Pranc, with a sigh of relief. "Well, I'm very glad to hear it." And though every member of the Committee on Extermination argued with him, and the First Lord of the Keyhole shook his fist at him and sputtered like a fire-cracker, he simply would _not_ say when he would like his head cut off. "Well," said the First Lord of the Keyhole to the Chairman of the Exterminating Committee, "we'll have to appeal to the King about the matter. This boy doesn't know what he wants." "Oh, yes, he does," said the Snooping Bug. "He does _not_," thundered the First Lord of the Keyhole. "He does, too," retorted the Snooping Bug, "and if you see the King, we'll see him, too." So everybody started off for the palace and never stopped until they stood outside the monarch's sitting-room. "Wait a moment," said the Chairman of the Exterminating Committee, "until I see whether he is busy." Whereupon he put his eye to the keyhole. "Yes," he said, straightening up again, "he is quite busy snooping under his bathroom door." "But," said Pranc, "what's the use of that?" "What's the use of anything?" snapped the First Lord of the Keyhole. "Practice makes perfect, and the more you snoop the better you can do it. The King of Snoopania does not believe in wasting his time, sir." And sure enough the monarch did not, for when they opened the door and went in, he had his head in the fireplace. "Oh, how do you do," he said, pulling it out again. "Are you very much engaged?" inquired the Chairman of the Exterminating Committee. "Well," said the King, "I only just got through with the bathroom and I did want to finish the chimney this morning, sure, but it doesn't matter. What is it?" "This boy," said the Chairman of the Exterminating Committee, "is to have his head cut off but he won't say when. He doesn't know what he wants, so we'd like to know if you know." "Of course he doesn't know," put in Pranc, impatiently. "I'm the only one who knows. And besides what is the use of asking a king who spends his time peeking up chimneys? I never heard of a king doing such a thing." Well, if the Prince had walked up to the monarch and boxed his ears he could not have astonished him or the rest of the party more. For a moment no one said anything, they just looked at each other in horror, and then the King turned red, white and blue in the face with rage. "You--you--you--" he bawled, glaring at Pranc, "you're an imitation snooper. You don't know the first principles of snooping. What are you doing in Snoopania anyway?" Then he yelled for his soldiers to come and cut the Prince's head off at once--at once. He repeated it twice so they would not misunderstand.