Chapter XXIV.
THE SAILORMAN’S RETURN.
Next day the witch-queen returned with her army to the city of Ix, to await the coming of the sailorman with the necktie, and King Bud set about getting his kingdom into running order again.
The lord high purse-bearer dug up his magic purse, and Bud ordered him to pay the shopkeepers full value for everything the Roly-Rogues had destroyed. The merchants were thus enabled to make purchases of new stocks of goods; and although all travelers had for many days kept away from Noland, for fear of the monsters, caravans now flocked in vast numbers to the city of Nole with rich stores of merchandise to sell, so that soon the entire city looked like a huge bazaar.
Bud also ordered a gold piece given to the head of every family; and this did no damage to the ever-filled royal purse, while it meant riches to the poor people who had suffered so much.
Princess Fluff had carried her silver chest back to the palace of her brother, and in it lay, carefully folded, the magic cloak. Being now fearful of losing it, she warned Jikki to allow no one to enter the room in which lay the silver chest, except with her full consent, explaining to him the value of the cloak.
“And was it this cloak I wore when I wished for half a dozen servants?” asked the old valet.
“Yes,” answered Fluff; “Aunt Rivette bade you return it to me, and you were so careless of it that nearly all the high counselors used it before I found it again.”
“Then,” said Jikki, heedless of the reproof, “will your Highness please use the cloak to rid me of these stupid servants? They are continually at my heels, waiting to serve me; and I am so busy myself serving others that those six young men almost drive me distracted. It wouldn’t be so bad if they would serve any one else; but they claim they are my servants alone, and refuse to wait upon even his Majesty the king.”
“Sometime I will try to help you,” answered Fluff; “but I shall not use the cloak again until the miller’s son returns from his voyage at sea.”
So Jikki was forced to wait as impatiently as the others for the sailorman, and his servants had now become such a burden upon him that he grumbled every time he looked around and saw them standing in a stiff line behind him.