"So you're going to look for your fortune?" said the dragon after a while.
"Yes," replied George, "I am. I hope Alexander will find his too."
"I hope so," smiled the dragon. "I like to see people who are looking for fortunes, though they don't always find them, even when they're under their very noses. I knew a dragon once—it's not a long story—who went to look for his fortune."
"Was it in Once-upon-a-Time Land?" asked George.
"Of course," replied the dragon. "People don't understand dragons anywhere else. They tell the most stupid stories about us, as if we went about doing nothing but eat up people and breathe fire. You might as well say that dogs do nothing else but kill cats," he added, with a laugh.
Alexander looked very solemn, and as if butter would not melt in his mouth.
"Well, this dragon, as I was saying, went out to look for his fortune. He was quite a young dragon, and ought to have stayed at home as his mother told him. He had never been farther than the end of the valley where they lived, though of course he thought he knew all about everything.
"So his mother kissed him good-bye, told him to take care not to catch cold, and watched him disappear in the distance. It was a fine day, and the young dragon went along thinking of all the great things he was going to do, and bumping his head against trees because he never looked where he was going.
"He met nobody and nothing for a long time. About midday he began to feel very hungry, and almost wished he were at home again. But at last, on the top of a hill, he saw a man standing by the door of a house; at least, he thought it must be a house, but he wasn't quite sure, for he had never seen one before. It was really a miller standing by his mill, whistling for the wind to come and turn the sails round.
"He was a friendly miller. He invited the dragon to rest for a while and have something to eat. After the dragon had eaten forty loaves and two hundred currant buns and drunk all the water out of the water-butt, he began to feel better, and told the miller what he was looking for.