"Go ahead!" said Auguste Philippe graciously. He had doubly the air of a sovereign, being at once a brother and heir presumptive.
"I'm going out to find and fight a dragon," said Princess Victorine.
"Huh!" sneered the Prince. "There aren't any dragons any more. You are behind the times."
"Aren't any dragons!" cried the Princess. "What do you mean?"
"There haven't been any for a long time," remarked Auguste Philippe nonchalantly, his hands in his pockets. But the Princess would not have the foundations of her faith shaken too easily.
"What do they mean by telling us about them all the time?" she demanded. "Every minstrel that comes here does, and so does old Lord Jean, and the Countess Madeline, and everybody nice."
"I don't care," asserted the Prince. "There aren't any—there's only the Microbe."
"What's the Microbe?" gasped the Princess.
"It's worse than dragons, that's what it is," said Auguste Philippe viciously.
"What does it do?" asked the Princess.