"I don't think so," said Noël; "you have to be a prince before you're a king, just as you have to be a kitten before you're a cat, or a puppy before you're a dog, or a worm before you're a serpent, or——"
"What about the King of Sweden?" Dora was beginning, when a very nice tall, thin man, with white flowers in his buttonhole like for a wedding, came strolling up and said—
"And whose show is this? Eh, what?"
We said it was ours.
"Are you expected?" he asked.
We said we thought not, but we hoped he didn't mind.
"What are you? Acrobats? Tight-rope? That's a ripping Burmese coat you've got there."
"Yes, it is. No we aren't," said Alice, with dignity. "I am Zaïda, the mysterious prophetess of the golden Orient, and the others are mysterious too, but we haven't fixed on their names yet."
"By jove!" said the gentleman; "but who are you really?"
"Our names are our secret," said Oswald, with dignity, but Alice said, "Oh, but we don't mind telling you, because I'm sure you're nice. We're really the Bastables, and we want to get some money for some one we know that's rather poor—of course I can't tell you her name. And we've learnt how to tell fortunes—really we have. Do you think they'll let us tell them at the fête. People are often dull at fêtes, aren't they?"