‘And teach him my magic? Not me.’
‘Suppose you got one so stupid he couldn’t learn?’
‘That would be all right—but it’s no use [p267 advertising for a stupid person—you’d get no answers.’
‘You needn’t advertise,’ said the nurse; and she went out and brought in James, who was really the Prince of the Fortunate Islands, and also the baker’s boy she had brought with her to hold the horse’s head.
‘Now, James,’ she said, ‘you’d like to be apprenticed, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said the poor stupid boy.
‘Then give the gentleman your money, James.’
James did.
‘My last doubts vanish,’ said the Magician, ‘he is stupid. Nurse, let us celebrate the occasion with a little drop of something. Not before the boy because of setting an example. James, wash up. Not here, silly; in the back kitchen.’
So James washed up, and as he was very clumsy he happened to break a little bottle of essence of dreams that was on the shelf, and instantly there floated up from the washing-up water the vision of a princess more beautiful than the day—so beautiful that even James could not help seeing how beautiful she was, and holding out his arms to her as she came floating through the air above the kitchen sink. But when he held out his arms she vanished. He sighed and washed up harder than ever.