“Is here,” replied the grenadier, and opening his knapsack, he took from it the hippodrac and placed it on the carpet just before the throne. As the soldier had taken the precaution to clip the monster’s wings, the tiny thing could do naught but dance with rage on its little blue hoofs, and lash out madly right and left in a frenzy of fear. A murmur of astonishment rose from the assembly. There was a great craning of necks. All present looked at the Lord Chancellor to hear what he might say. “That little thing, the great hippodrac?” said the Lord Chancellor, evilly. “Pooh! ’T is a juggler’s kitten, rather. I shall give no reward for this.” “You dare?” cried the grenadier fiercely. “Wait!” And he reached in his pocket for the little green wand, but, alas, the little green wand was gone. “Pooh!” said the Chancellor again, watching, with contented eyes, the poor grenadier madly thrusting his hands into every pocket, “You see he cannot do as he pretends. The fellow is an impostor. Ho, guards! Take this rogue and his dancing kitten off to prison.” “But it looks like the hippodrac,” protested the Princess. “No! Not a bit of it, not a bit of it!” roared the Chancellor. And he quickly silenced all those who were fain to see justice done, by threatening to send any objector to the royal diamond-mines in the Adamant Mountains. Left to himself in a lonely cell of the royal prison, the poor grenadier awaited the day of his departure for the mines. Finding the time hang heavy on his hands, he amused himself by trying to tame the tiny hippodrac. To his surprise and pleasure, the fierce little creature made a swift response. Soon it was eating crumbs from his hand. In a fortnight it could spell out words and letters by tapping the floor with its right foreleg! And day by day, its clipped wings grew once more to full size. “Oh, if you could only get me my green wand again!” said the soldier one morning. At these words, the hippodrac beat an excited tattoo on the table, and before the soldier could seize it, spread its little gleaming wings, and fled through the barred window out into the world. All day long the soldier waited its return. “It has flown away forever,” he thought, as twilight fell. A moment later, however, he heard a whir of tiny wings, and the hippodrac returned, the little green wand in its jaws. You may well believe that the soldier was overjoyed! That very night he found means to send a petition to the Princess, asking to be brought before her that he might at last prove the truth of his story. Now the Chancellor, knowing that his wicked scheme had succeeded, and never dreaming of the possibility of the grenadier’s escape, had gone a-hunting: so the Princess took matters into her own hands, and next morning summoned the grenadier before the court. Alas! Just as the grenadier reached the throne, the Chancellor, hastily summoned by another of his rascally spies, came striding angrily into the judgment hall.