‘Base clodpole!’ said his Majesty, ‘is the Prince, my son, in love with your little peasant girl with open arms, crying out—‘Yes, King of Bubbles, it is true.’
‘Then,’ said the King, ‘Blow me!’
At the sound of these words, the most terrible that could be heard in the whole kingdom of Bubble Island, all the army uttered a howl, and the Prime Minister and other Wise Men rushed to their bowls of soap-suds, and filling the air with bubbles to try if their pipes were in the highest degree of perfection, they then advanced towards the King and applied their pipes to different parts of his body to blow him as he ordered. But suddenly was heard a great sound of wind and rain, and the sky got dark, and it began to snow; and while they were all staring at the fast-falling snow, the ugly, strong-limbed Dwarf, with the blue nose and goggle-eyes, came walking down among them and said:—
‘I will befriend thee, King of Bubbles,
And all thy foes I’ll fill with troubles:
Come frost and snow! and cover all we see,
And change the face of life’s reality!’
At these words there began to descend a number of dark, heavy clouds, at the same time that a mist rose up from the earth, till the clouds and the mist met, and out of the middle came a great troop of the Spirits of the Frost and Snow, all glistening in white snow and icicles, with branches covered with snow and icicles in their hands, and they all sang this chorus:—
‘We will the face of Nature change,
And makes its pleasant places strange,