Part 31 (2/2)

”Same place wot you're going to I expect.”

And when we said where was that we were requested by him to get along with us. Which we did.

An old woman in the heaviest bonnet I have ever seen and the highest--it was like a black church--revealed the secret to us, and we learned that there was a Primrose _fete_ going on in Sir Willoughby Blockson's grounds.

We instantly decided to go to the _fete_.

”I've been to a Primrose _fete_, and so have you, Dora,” Oswald remarked, ”and people are so dull at them, they'd gladly give gold to see the dark future. And, besides, the villages will be unpopulated, and no one at home but idiots and babies and their keepers.”

So we went to the _fete_.

The people got thicker and thicker, and when we got to Sir Willoughby's lodge gates, which have sprawling lions on the gate-posts, we were told to take the donkey cart round to the stable-yard.

This we did, and proud was the moment when a stiff groom had to bend his proud stomach to go to the head of Bates's donkey.

”This is something like,” said Alice, and Noel added:

”The foreign princes are well received at this palace.”

”We aren't princes, we're gipsies,” said Dora, tucking his scarf in. It would keep on getting loose.

”There _are_ gipsy princes, though,” said Noel, ”because there are gipsy kings.”

”You aren't always a prince first,” said Dora; ”don't wriggle so or I can't fix you. Sometimes being made a king just happens to some one who isn't any one in particular.”

”I don't think so,” said Noel; ”you have to be a prince before you're a king, just as you have to be a kitten before you're a cat, or a puppy before you're a dog, or a worm before you're a serpent, or----”

”What about the King of Sweden?” Dora was beginning, when a very nice tall, thin man, with white flowers in his b.u.t.tonhole like for a wedding, came strolling up and said--

”And whose show is this? Eh, what?”

We said it was ours.

”Are you expected?” he asked.

We said we thought not, but we hoped he didn't mind.

”What are you? Acrobats? Tight-rope? That's a ripping Burmese coat you've got there.”

”Yes, it is. No we aren't,” said Alice, with dignity. ”I am Zada, the mysterious prophetess of the golden Orient, and the others are mysterious too, but we haven't fixed on their names yet.”

”By jove!” said the gentleman; ”but who are you really?”

”Our names are our secret,” said Oswald, with dignity, but Alice said, ”Oh, but we don't mind telling _you_, because I'm sure you're nice.

We're really the Bastables, and we want to get some money for some one we know that's rather poor--of course I can't tell you _her_ name. And we've learnt how to tell fortunes--really we have. Do you think they'll let us tell them at the _fete_. People are often dull at _fetes_, aren't they?”

”By Jove!” said the gentleman again--”by Jove, they are!”

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