When the Head-nurse came into the tower-yard, the dog began to bark; he was not used to seeing a woman with her face in the crown of her bonnet. He thought that her head must be on the wrong way, and that she was a monster, and had designs upon his master's property. So he barked and growled, and caught hold of her dress, and the Head-nurse screamed. The Baron himself came running downstairs, and opened the door. "Who is there?" cried he.
But when he saw the woman with her bonnet on wrong he knew at once that she must be one of the Princess's nurses. So he ordered off the dog, and ushered the nurse into the tower. He led her into his study, and asked her to sit down. "Now, madam, what can I do for you?" he inquired quite politely.
"Oh, my lord!" cried the Head-nurse in her muffled voice, "help me to find the Princess."
The Baron, who was a tall lean old man and wore a very large-figured dressing-gown trimmed with fur, frowned, and struck his fist down upon the table. "Help you to find the Princess!" he exclaimed; "don't you suppose I should find her on my own account if I could? I should have found her long before this if the idiots had not broken all my bottles, and crystals, and retorts, and mirrors, and spilled all the magic fluids, so that I cannot practice any white magic at all. The idea of looking for a princess in a bottle—that comes of pinning one's faith upon philosophy!"
"Then you cannot find the Princess by white magic?" the Head-nurse asked timidly.
The Baron pounded the table again. "Of course I cannot," he replied, "with all my magical utensils smashed in the search for her."
The Head-nurse sighed pitifully.
"I suppose that you do not like to go about with your face in the crown of your bonnet?" the Baron remarked in a harsh voice.
The Head-nurse replied sadly that she did not.
"It doesn't seem to me that I should mind it much," said the Baron.