"Wait till you are asked, Master Pert!" rejoined she; "you shall say nothing at all, and I'll take care to prevent you from opening your self-sufficient beak. Only wait a moment!"
As she blustered out this, she touched him with her wand, and transformed him into the little bird which to this day bears his name. The king and queen wished to embrace him, but there was no doing that any longer now he had become so small; they could only set him on their fingers. They had scarcely time to kiss him even, for he flew off, in obedience to the fairy, who pronounced these terrible words: "Fly where thou canst; do what thou must."
The tears of the king and queen, it is true, did move Fairy Grumble-do a little, but she would not let that be seen, and merely said, "That is just like you; you are served quite rightly," and then she seated herself in her post-chaise, which was drawn by seven magpies and seven cocks, who made a shocking noise; and off she drove in a very ill-humour to the assembly of the fairies, which was held that very day.
By chance she was seated next to the kind fairy Bonbon, and as the mouth is prompt to speak about that of which the heart is full, she related to the latter all the trouble she had had in providing suitably for the fourteen princes; during which narration she did not fail to give it well to the king and queen, just as if they were present. At last she asked her colleague if she happened to have a kingdom or a princess to bestow on Prince Chaffinch.
Fairy Bonbon, notoriously the best-hearted creature in the world, who was quite averse to this incessant scolding, told her that she would willingly undertake to find one, but only on condition that Fairy Grumble-do should not interfere in it, and permit her first to put the young prince to the proof.
"Do what you please," resumed the latter, speaking more through her nose than ever—"do what you please, so that I hear no more about the matter."
She then renounced all her fairy rights over Prince Chaffinch, and then drew up a formal contract, which they both signed with their own hands in presence of the lawyer and of competent witnesses.
Bonbon, who soon perceived that her two protegé's were well suited to each other, resolved to look still closer into the matter, in order to proceed the more securely, and to make Gracious truly happy. But she was much pressed for time as the day of her departure was irrevocably fixed, and was rapidly approaching. She had therefore to devise some means by which the two might have an opportunity of working out their own destiny by faith and truth. The first thing she did, therefore, was to catch Chaffinch, whose natural sprightliness caused him to delight greatly in flying about, to shut him up in a cage, and bring him to her castle.
As soon as the young enchanted prince beheld Gracious he was very joyful, flapped his wings, and tried with all his strength to get out of the cage and fly to her. He was delighted, however, when she said to him, "Good morrow, my little bird; dear, how beautiful you are!" Yet he felt grieved at the same time that he could only answer her by his twittering, but he did that as agreeably as he could, and made every demonstration of tenderness that a bird could. This greatly touched Gracious, though she did not in the least suspect the truth; and she said, quite unreservedly to Bonbon, that she had always been particularly fond of chaffinches; at which the kind fairy smiled, and made her a present of the enchanted prince, on condition of her taking care of him as of the apple of her eye. This Gracious willingly promised, and did so too with the greatest satisfaction.
When the day came for the fairy to depart, she said to Gracious, "Take great care of the chaffinch, and never let him out of the cage; for were he to fly away, I should be extremely displeased."