The King wavered. "I always said I would have no girls in my palace," he murmured sorrowfully.
"Will you promise?" persisted Dimples.
The King avoided her eyes. It was very hard not to give in and smile too, when Dimples looked like that. After all, he reflected, if Dimples was a girl and did not understand things properly, she made an excellent playfellow; and the most wonderful palace in the world might grow a little dull if there were only wooden soldiers to share it with. So the King made up his mind, and took the prisoner by one hand and waved his other in a royal manner to the captain.
"I will talk it over with the prisoner," he announced, "so do not let us be disturbed. And you need not take any more prisoners without consulting me," he added hastily, for he really feared that his nurse might be the next prisoner, and then, where would be the fun of being a king at all?
"Now, let us go and explore your palace," said Dimples, impatiently; and the captain was left on the bottom brick to get over his disappointment.
It would be impossible to describe how the two children wandered over the fairy palace that the Prince had built; how they climbed from one floor to another; how they dropped from arch to pillar; how they wound their way in and out of delightful passages, finding fresh secret rooms as they went; how from one window they looked down on the vast nursery tableland and from another caught a glimpse of the towering rocking-horse; how they quite forgot they were King and prisoner, and stood at last, hand in hand, on the battlements of the highest tower and told each other what fun it was to play in a real fairy palace.
The toy captain, however, had not forgotten anything; and when he saw them talking in this familiar manner on the battlements—which he could easily do from his position on the bottom brick, so cleverly was this wonderful palace built—he felt it was high time to interfere.
"Has your Majesty decided how to punish the prisoner?" asked the toy captain, holding himself in his very stiffest manner and raising his voice sufficiently to be heard on the battlements.
The King looked at the prisoner, and the prisoner laughed at the King.