The Flamingo Princess waited long and anxiously for his return; but he never came. I believe she finally married an ostrich, who led her a terrible life.
The Principal Whale called at the coast of Africa on his way back from the Southern seas, and hearing the sad intelligence of the Prince’s disappearance, departed in great sadness for his Northern home, to break the news to the Solar-Polarity of the Hypopeppercorns. When that potentate heard of the disappearance of his son, he fell off the North Pole, and broke his neck; and the whole nation assumed the mourning costume of the polar bears, which consists in tying a sailor’s knot in the left ear, and a granny’s knot in the right.
And thus ends, in sadness and despair, the story of “The Lost Prince of the Poles.”
CHAPTER XI.
One afternoon (it was not a “story” afternoon, for the grandmother was very busy, dyeing some of her homespun yarn) Toto went off to the forest early, intending to have a game of scamper with Coon and Cracker. As he sauntered along with his hands in his pockets, he met the woodchuck. Master Chucky looked very spruce and neat, and was trotting along with an air of great self-satisfaction.
“Hallo! you Chucky,” exclaimed Toto, “where are you going?”
The woodchuck stopped, and glanced around with his sharp little eyes. “Is any one with you, Toto?” he asked,—“Coon, or Cracker, or any of those fellows?”
“No,” answered Toto in some surprise. “I was just going to find them. Do you want them?”
“No, indeed!” exclaimed the woodchuck. “You see,” and he lowered his voice confidentially, “I am going to a rinktum, and I don’t want those fellows to know about it.”