Fiona never thought about it for a moment, of course. She had not done all that she had done to hesitate now. She did not look at the King's face, and she took not the least notice of the creature with the head, who was dancing about in a perfect agony, trying to attract her attention. "Please your Majesty," she said in breathless haste, "I came here to find the Urchin and take him home with me. That is my wish." She had hardly spoken the words when her instinct told her something was wrong. A sort of chill seemed to run through the air, and the color seemed to go out of the fairy world. The creature with the head stopped dancing about and began to wring its little hands. She looked up at the King's face, and read there, was it disappointment? was it regret? She hardly knew. "A very natural and proper wish," said the King gravely. "We shall of course accept it as such, and grant it with great pleasure. The younger prisoner is discharged. Take the next case." And then Fiona saw. She saw the thing which had once been Jeconiah, with that look of abject terror and entreaty in its eyes; and she realized that it would have meant nothing to her to have included Jeconiah in her wish, and that for Jeconiah it would have meant everything. And she realized also that, worthless and evil as he had been in life, selfish, mean, a thief and a liar, he was still a human being, and had a soul and possibilities of which the fairy world could know nothing. She felt a wave of humiliation pass over her; and she resolved that, whatever he was, and whatever happened, she would not go home without Jeconiah. The charges against Jeconiah were then read: stealing a treasure, and being a worthless character. "Any defence?" said the King. The creature with the head got to work. "Please Majesty," he said, "admit second count. Character worthless. Object pity however not vindictive punishment. Behalf client offer submit State cure. First count plead not guilty; intention steal treasure admitted but did not succeed." Fiona, in her new-found humility, had been listening to what the creature with the head was saying. And suddenly it dawned on her that, all through, both he and the King had been trying to help her, so far as was consistent with their own rules; and that perhaps the creature with the head, for all his oddity, knew what he was doing. She asked the Leprechaun who he was. "You might have asked that with advantage before you interrupted him," said the Leprechaun severely. "He is our Chancellor here. He is the King's most intimate friend, and far the ablest lawyer in Fairyland." "Defence to first count not admitted," the King was saying. "Your client cannot plead his own bungling of the theft in mitigation of his wrongdoing. Only the intention counts here." The Chancellor looked immensely relieved at the King's words, though it passed Fiona's wit to see why. "Apply formal ruling," he said. "Take down," this to Whitecap.