"I have said all I have to say," said the Court Godmother, "so there is no need for me to remain any longer." And with that she hobbled out of the room.
"I suppose you got your way about those—ah—bird-chariots, my dear?" he asked, "as you don't seem to have sacked her!"
"She seemed so upset at the idea of giving them up that I said she might keep them. I shall certainly not 'sack' her, as you call it. Now I've come to know her better, I find she is a good, faithful old soul who is much too useful to part with, and you must be very careful to be civil to her in future. What was it you wanted to say to me?"
"The Lord Treasurer and I have been going into our private resources," he said. "I thought perhaps you might like to come with me to my Counting-house and—and have a look at 'em, my dear."
She was only too eager to do so. "Tell me, Sidney," she gasped, as they hurried through various corridors to the wing in which the King's Counting-house was situated. "Shall we—shall we have enough to live on decently?"
"I don't know what you will think," he replied, with an irrepressible chuckle, "but I should call it affluence myself—positive affluence, my love!"
They arrived at a heavily clamped door, where the Marshal, the Treasurer, and Prince Clarence and Princess Edna were waiting for them. "Two steps down," said King Sidney after unlocking the door.
"And here we are!" he cried triumphantly, as they entered.
The Counting-house was a huge barrel-roofed chamber lighted from windows protected by elaborate scroll-work bars. Upon shelves all round the walls, and piled in heaps on the floor, were sacks, "Every blessed one," explained the King, "chock full of gold ducats! What do you think of that, eh, my love?"
"I think, Sidney," she replied, "that I am the person who should have the key."