LITMIR.BIZ

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Prince, and he ordered out his pack of hippopotamuses at once. It was his custom to hunt big game with hippopotamuses, and people would not have minded that so much—but he would swagger about in the streets of the town with his pack yelping and gamboling at his heels, and when he did that, the green-grocer, who had his stall in the marketplace, always regretted it; and the crockery merchant, who spread his wares on the pavement, was ruined for life every time the Prince chose to show off his pack.

      The Prince rode out of the town with his hippopotamuses trotting and frisking behind him, and people got inside their houses as quickly as they could when they heard the voices of his pack and the blowing of his horn. The pack squeezed through the town gates and off across country to hunt the dragon. Few of you who had not seen a pack of hippopotamuses in full cry will be able to imagine at all what the hunt was like. To begin with, hippopotamuses do not bay like hounds: They grunt like pigs, and their grunt is very big and fierce. Then, of course, no one expects hippopotamuses to jump. They just crash through the hedges and lumber through the standing corn, doing serious injury to the crops, and annoying the farmers very much. All the hippopotamuses had collars with their name and address on, but when the farmers called at the palace to complain of the injury to their standing crops, the Prince always said it served them right for leaving their crops standing about in people's way, and he never paid anything at all.

      So now, when he and his pack went out, several people in the town whispered, "I wish the dragon would eat him"—which was very wrong of them, no doubt, but then he was such a very nasty Prince.

      They hunted by field, and they hunted by wold; they drew the woods blank, and the scent didn't lie on the downs at all. The dragon was shy, and would not show himself.

      But just as the Prince was beginning to think there was no dragon at all, but only a cock and bull, his favourite old hippopotamus gave tongue. The Prince blew his horn and shouted: "Tally ho! Hark forward! Tantivy!" and the whole pack charged downhill toward the hollow by the wood. For there, plain to be seen, was the dragon, as big as a barge, glowing like a furnace, and spitting fire and showing his shining teeth.

      "The hunt is up!" cried the Prince. And indeed it was. For the dragon—instead of behaving as a quarry should, and running away—ran straight at the pack, and the Prince, on his elephant, had the mortification of seeing his prize pack swallowed up one by one in the twinkling of an eye, by the dragon they had come out to hunt. The dragon swallowed all the hippopotamuses just as a dog swallows bits of meat. It was a shocking sight. Of the whole of the pack that had come out sporting so merrily to the music of the horn, now not even a puppy-hippopotamus was left, and the dragon was looking anxiously around to see if he had forgotten anything.

      The Prince slipped off his elephant on the other side and ran into the thickest part of the wood. He hoped the dragon could not break through the bushes there, since they were very strong and close. He went crawling on hands and knees in a most un-Prince-like way, and at last, finding a hollow tree, he crept into it. The wood was very still—no crashing of branches and no smell of burning came to alarm the Prince. He drained the silver hunting bottle slung from his shoulder, and stretched his legs in the hollow tree. He never shed a single tear for his poor tame hippopotamuses who had eaten from his hand and followed him faithfully in all the pleasures of the chase for so many years. For he was a false Prince, with a skin like leather and hair like hearth brushes and a heart like a stone. He never shed a tear, but he just went to sleep.

      When he awoke it was dark. He crept out of the tree and rubbed his eyes. The wood was black about him, but there was a red glow in a dell close by. It was a fire of sticks, and beside it sat a ragged youth with long, yellow hair; all around lay sleeping forms which breathed heavily.

      "Who are you?" said the Prince.

      "I'm Elfin, the pig keeper," said the ragged youth. "And who are you?"

      "I'm Tiresome, the Prince," said the other.

      "And what are you doing out of your palace at this time of night?" asked the pig keeper, severely.

      "I've been hunting," said the Prince.

      The pig keeper laughed. "Oh, it was you I saw, then? A good hunt, wasn't it? My pigs and I were looking on."

      All the sleeping forms grunted and snored, and the Prince saw that they were pigs: He knew it by their manners.

      "If you had known as much as I do," Elfin went on, "you might have saved your pack."

      "What do you mean?" said Tiresome.

      "Why, the dragon," said Elfin. "You went out at the wrong time of day. The dragon should be hunted at night."

      "No, thank you," said the Prince, with a shudder. "A daylight hunt is quite good enough for me, you silly pig keeper."

      "Oh, well," said Elfin, "do as you like about it—the dragon will come and hunt you tomorrow, as likely as not. I don't care if he does, you silly Prince."

      "You're very rude," said Tiresome.

      "Oh, no, only truthful," said Elfin.

      "Well, tell me the truth, then. What is it that, if I had known as much as you do about, I shouldn't have lost my hippopotamuses?"

      "You don't speak very good English," said Elfin. "But come, what will you give me if I tell you?"

      "If you tell me what?" said the tiresome Prince.

      "What you want to know."

      "I don't want to know anything," said Prince Tiresome.

      "Then you're more of a silly even than I thought," said Elfin. "Don't you want to know how to settle the dragon before he settles you?"

      "It might be as well," the Prince admitted.

      "Well, I haven't much patience at any time," said Elfin, "and now I can assure you that there's very little left. What will you give me if I tell you?"

      "Half my kingdom," said the Prince, "and my cousin's hand in marriage."

      "Done," said the pig keeper. "Here goes! The dragon grows small at night! He sleeps under the root of this tree. I use him to light my fire with."

      And, sure enough, there under the tree was the dragon on a nest of scorched moss, and he was about as long as your finger.

      "How can I kill him?" asked the Prince.

      "I don't know that you can kill him," said Elfin, "but you can take him away if you've brought anything to put him in. That bottle of yours would do."

      So between them they managed, with bits of stick and by singeing their fingers a little, to poke and shove the dragon till they made it creep into the silver hunting bottle, and then the Prince screwed on the top tight.

       "They made it creep into the silver hunting bottle."

      "Now we've got him," said Elfin. "Let's take him home and put Solomon's seal on the mouth of the bottle, and then he'll be safe enough. Come along—we'll divide up the kingdom tomorrow, and then I shall have some money to buy fine clothes to go courting in."

      But when the wicked Prince made promises he did not make them to keep.

      "Go on with you! What do you mean?" he said. "I found the dragon and I've imprisoned him. I never said a word about courtings or kingdoms. If you say I did, I shall cut your head off at once." And he drew his sword.

      "All right," said Elfin, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm better off than you are, anyhow."

      "What do you mean?" spluttered the Prince.

      "Why, you've only got a kingdom (and a dragon), but I've got clean hands (and five and seventy fine black pigs)."

      So Elfin sat down again by his fire, and the Prince went home and told his Parliament how clever and brave he had been, and though he woke them up on purpose to tell them, they were not angry, but said: "You are indeed brave and clever." For they knew what happened to people with whom the Prince was not pleased.

      Then the

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