“However do you manage to put up with living in a dormitory with twelve other boys, when you have a bedroom like this at home?” said Mike to the little prince. “I say — what a wonderful view!”
Mike’s room had two sets of windows. One set looked out over the blue lake and the other looked up the hillside on which the palace was built. It was a grand country.
“It’s wild and rugged and rough and beautiful,” said Paul. “Not like your country. Yours is quite tame. It is like a tame cat, sitting by the fire. Mine is like a wild tiger roaming the hills.”
“He’s gone all poetic again!” said Mike, with a laugh. But he knew what Paul meant, all the same. There was something very wild and exciting about Baronia. It looked so beautiful, smiling under the summer sun — but it might not be all it seemed to be on the surface. It was not “tamed” like their own country — it was still wild, and parts of it quite unknown.
The children washed in basins that seemed to be made of silver. They dried their hands on towels embroidered with the Baronian arms. Everything was perfect. It seemed almost a shame to dirty the towels or make the clear water in the basins dirty and soapy!
They went with Paul to have lunch. They were to have it with the King and Queen, although after that they would have meals in their own play-room, a big room near their bedrooms, which Paul had already shown them. The toys there had made them gasp. An electric railway ran down one side of the room, on which Paul’s trains could run. A Meccano set, bigger than any the children had ever-seen, was in another corner, with a beautiful bridge made from the pieces, left by Paul from the last holidays. Everything a boy could want was there! It would be great fun to explore that play-room!
The lunch was marvellous. The children did not know any of the dishes, but they all tasted equally delicious. If this was Baronian food they could eat plenty! Paul’s mother talked to them in English, and Paul’s father made one or two jokes. Paul chattered away to his parents, sometimes in Baronian and sometimes in English. He told them all about the things he did at school.
Jack nudged Mike. “You’d think Paul was head-boy to hear him talk!” he said, in a low tone. “We’ll tease him about this afterwards!”
It was a happy meal. The children were very hungry, but by the time lunch was nearing an end they could not eat another scrap. Jack looked longingly at a kind of pink ice-cream with what looked like purple cherries in it. But no — he could not even manage another ice.
Ranni and Pilescu did not eat with the others. They stood quietly, one behind the King’s chair and one behind Paul’s. A line of soldiers, in the blue and silver uniform, stood at the end of the room. The four English children couldn’t help feeling rather grand, eating their lunch with a king, a queen, and a prince, with soldiers on guard at the back. Baronia was going to be fun!