The _School-bell_ rings; [Sidenote: ☉] The _Children_ all Must answer to The _Master’s_ call. [Sidenote: _Cloudy and warm._] The _Master_ has A crooked _Nose_; He whips the _Boys_, And puffs, and blows; He makes them stand And walk by _Rule_, And bow before They leave the _School_. K.P. [Illustration: The White Bird.] IX. Once there was a king, who, as time went on, found himself waxing old in years and feeble in body, so he began to think of giving up the cares of government and of taking his ease for as much of life as was left him. But here was the trouble: there were three princes, and each one of them was just as clever as the other two, so that the old king could not tell which to choose as the right one to sit in his place. He thought and thought and thought, until at last he plucked an apple off of his thinking-tree, as folks say. All three of the princes should go out into the world, and whichever of them should fetch back an apple from the Tree of Happiness should rule over all of the kingdom. And I speak the truth when I say that the apple was cheap enough even at that price. So off went the three to seek for what they wanted. They travelled along without let or stay until towards evening they came to a place where two houses stood, the one on the one side of the road and the other on the other. One of them was as fine a house as a body ever saw. Every window was lit up by the warm fires and the bright lights within, and even out on the high-road one could hear the merry times the folks were having; laughing and singing and clinking their glasses together. As for the good things cooking in the kitchen, why it was enough to make one hungry just to smell the steam of them. Over the door was a sign, and on the sign was written, “WHO ENTERS HERE SHALL HAVE WHAT HE LIKES AND PAY NOTHING FOR IT.” The other house was a poor, mean, little, tumble-down hut, as silent as death, and with never a spark of light or fire shining at the windows. There was also a sign over the door, and on the sign was written, “WHO ENTERS HERE SHALL HAVE WHAT HE NEEDS AND PAY WHAT HE CAN.” “Yonder is the place for us,” said the older brothers, and they pointed with their thumbs to the grand house, where there was good company with plenty to eat and drink and nothing to pay. “Yes,” says the youngest of the three, “that is all very well, but I would rather pay for what I need than get what I like for nothing.”