Usually the children poured out all the doings of the term — how well they had played tennis, how exciting cricket had been, how fine the new swimming-pool was, and how awful the exams were. But today not a word was said about the term that had just passed. No — it was all Baronia, Baronia, Baronia! Paul was delighted to see their excitement, for he was very proud of his country.
“Of course, it is not a very big country,” he said, “but it is a beautiful one, and a very wild one. Ah, our grand mountains, our great forests, our beautiful villages! The stern rough men, the laughing women, the good food!”
“You sound like a poet, Paul,” said Peggy. “Go on!”
“No,” said the little prince, going red. “You will laugh at me. You English people are strange. You love your country but you hardly ever praise her. Now I could tell you of Baronia’s beauties for an hour. And not only beauties. I could tell you of wild robbers…”
“Oooh,” said Peggy, thrilled.
“And of fierce animals in the mountains,” said Paul.
“We’ll hunt them!” Mike chimed in.
“And of hidden ways in the hills, deep forests where no foot has ever trodden, and…”
“Oh, let’s go this very minute!” said Nora. “I can’t wait! We might have adventures there — thrilling ones, like those we’ve had before.”
The little prince shook his head. “No,” he said. “We shall have no exciting adventures in Baronia. We shall live in my father’s palace, and wherever we go there will be guards with us. You see, since that time I was kidnapped, I am never allowed to go about alone in Baronia.”