“Oh! take them away!—take them away!” he shouted, dropping his carpet-bag in alarm, and evidently forgetting that I was as incapable as he was of driving them off.
“Throw your sandwich away!” I shouted; “it’s that they are after, I believe.”
His Majesty did so, and we soon had the satisfaction of seeing the birds squabbling over it on the bank at the side of the shute.
“GO AWAY!” SHOUTED HIS MAJESTY.
“Fortunate I tied my bag to the string of my cloak, wasn’t it?” remarked the Wallypug, when they had gone. “I should have lost it else. Oh, look! What’s that coming down the shute?” he cried, as something suddenly came rolling and bounding down the steep incline.
“O—o—o—h!” he continued delightedly, as it stopped, caught in the mouth of the carpet-bag which, attached to the cord of his Majesty’s cloak, dangled down the shute. “Why, it’s my crown! They must have thought that I wanted it, and sent it down after me. How very kind of them. Wasn’t it?”
I had my own opinions on the subject, and held my peace, for I felt quite sure that it was not through any intentional kindness that the crown had found its way to its proper owner.
His Majesty very carefully drew up the carpet-bag with its precious burden, and soon had the intense satisfaction of putting the crown of Why on his royal head once more.
“Oh!” he cried with a little sigh of satisfaction, “it does seem nice to have it on again. I’m afraid that I should soon have caught a cold in my head, like A. Fish, Esq., if I had gone without it much longer.”