“Arrest her again for insulting the Lord Chancellor,” said Lord Norval. “You said you were going to be Queen, and that’s a lie. King Selim wouldn’t look at you. He has confided to me that he has been in love with—with—I suppose I had better say Princess Wooden, for some time, and has reason to believe that she is not indifferent to him.”
“Well, he has looked at me sometimes,” said Wooden, “but I’m sure I never gave him any encouragement. I don’t like him very much, Lord Noodle. He’s a foreigner, you see, and I don’t like foreigners. Couldn’t it be arranged for him to marry my aunt, as she’s ready for him! I’d rather it was her than me.”
The Lord Chancellor looked muddled. “I couldn’t say anything without consulting his Majesty,” he said. “He might consent; but then again he might not. The best way will be for us all to go up to the Palace, as already ordered, and ask him. I am sorry your aunt will have to appear there under arrest, but as she has committed a crime, or rather two crimes, that can’t be helped.”
The situation was certainly awkward. Nobody quite seemed to know what to do about it. But Peggy, who had been listening with great interest to what had been said, ventured to make a suggestion. “If Wooden’s aunt does marry the King,” she said, “then she wouldn’t have told a story, would she?”
Everybody brightened up, and the Lord Chancellor said, “That is one of the cleverest things I ever heard said. But who is this ingenious and attractive-looking young lady, may I ask?”
Wooden explained to him who Peggy was, and he bowed low to her, and said he was proud to make her acquaintance. “Well, after what you have pointed out,” he said, “I have no difficulty in unarresting this lady for telling a lie. But she has also insulted a high official. She said that my head was like an egg. It may be or it may not be, but nobody could say that it was a polite thing to point out.”
He looked at Peggy as if he expected her to make another suggestion, and would not be sorry if she made it.
Peggy could think of nothing better to say than, “I like eggs myself, especially if they are new-laid.”
The Lord Chancellor caught at this instantly. “Did you have a new-laid egg in your mind when you referred to my head, Madam?” he asked of Wooden’s aunt.
Wooden’s aunt, who was looking much more subdued than usual, standing by the officer who had arrested her, said, “Well, there’s one thing I never would do, and that’s tell a lie. I can’t rightly say that I had a new-laid egg in my mind, because I won’t deceive you, I don’t know where my mind is. I went to sea early, and never had much schooling, and never learnt no physiognomy. There may be a new-laid egg in my mind, or there may not. I wouldn’t like to say.”