So the King sent his Army, and the enemy were crushed. The Bird laughed the King back into his throne, and laughed away the butcher’s shop just in time for his Majesty to proclaim a general holiday, and to organise a magnificent reception for the Army. Matilda now helped the King to manage everything. She wonderfully enjoyed the new delightful feeling of being clever, so that she felt it was indeed too bad when the Cockatoucan laughed just as the reception was beautifully arranged. It laughed, and the general holiday was turned into an income tax; the magnificent reception changed itself to a royal reprimand, and the Army itself suddenly became a discontented Sunday-school treat, and had to be fed with buns and brought home in brakes, crying.
“Something must be done,” said the King.
“Well,” said Matilda, “I’ve been thinking if you will make me the Princess’s governess, I’ll see what I can do. I’m quite clever enough.”
“I must open Parliament to do that,” said the King; “it’s a Constitutional change.”
So he hurried off down the road to open Parliament. But the bird put its head on one side and laughed at him as he went by. He hurried on, but his beautiful crown grew large and brassy, and was set with cheap glass in the worst possible taste. His robe turned from velvet and ermine to flannelette and rabbit’s fur. His sceptre grew twenty feet long and extremely awkward to carry. But he persevered, his royal blood was up.
“No bird,” said he, “shall keep me from my duty and my Parliament.”
But when he got there, he was so agitated that he could not remember which was the right key to open Parliament with, and in the end he hampered the lock and so could not open Parliament at all, and members of Parliament went about making speeches in the roads to the great hindrance of the traffic.
The poor King went home and burst into tears.