He stopped speaking suddenly, for he saw that the woman was laughing at him. She had snatched the basin of stew as it were from his very mouth; and as she laughed loudly and shrilly, she pointed at the Prince with her fat forefinger.
Drawn by the noise she was making, all the peasants flocked around, crying out,—
"What is it, Mother Michael? What is the joke? Tell us, that we may laugh too; for you know we must laugh. It is our duty to laugh."
"He wants to be trusted for a basin of broth," tittered the old dame, "and he says that he will pay me when he finds the Crushed Strawberry Wizard!"
At this all the peasants laughed in chorus till the very hills echoed.
"I don't see what you are laughing at," cried the poor Prince, hotly; "I think you are very silly indeed."
"Of course we are!" answered the laughing peasants. "It is our duty to be silly. If we cannot laugh at something, we laugh at nothing, since this is Sillyburg, the merriest town in Jolliland."
"But," asked the Prince, in vexation, "does nobody here know anything? Has nobody any sense?"