“Speak out! Speak up!” cried the Forgetful Poet, leaping to his feet:
“Speak out, speak up
And then get hence,
We cannot stand this dire—
this dire, this dire—”
“Suspense,” finished Peer Haps automatically. “Yes, speak up, fellow!” he cried anxiously.
“In four days, a monster will marry the Princess!” wailed Abrog, pulling his peaked cap down over his eyes. “In four days, four days, four days!” And having said this, he began to gallop ’round the breakfast table, Peer Haps and the Forgetful Poet right after him. You, yourself, can imagine the effect of such a message on the merry old Peer of Perhaps City. Why, he prized the little Princess above all his possessions, yes, even above his yellow hen who was a brick layer and laid gold bricks instead of eggs. Indeed, she had done more than anyone else to lay the foundation of his fortune.
“What kind of a m-monster?” stuttered the Forgetful Poet, waving his muffin.
“Where is my daughter now?” demanded Peer Haps, seizing Abrog by the whiskers, for there seemed no other way of stopping him. Abrog waved feebly toward the window and, rushing across the room, the Peer and the poet stared out into the garden where the sweetest little Princess in all the countries of the East was gathering roses. She waved gaily to the two in the window, and, with a shudder, Peer Haps turned back to Abrog.
“Let me see the prophecy,” he demanded, holding out his hand. Abrog produced a crumpled parchment and after one glance the old Peer covered his face and sank groaning into his enormous arm chair. The Forgetful Poet had read over his shoulder and instantly burst into all the melancholy poems he knew. “Oh, hush!” begged the old monarch at last, “and you,” he waved wildly at the prophet, “can you do nothing but run ’round that table like a merry-go-round goat?”
“I could marry the Princess myself,” rasped Abrog, coming to a sudden standstill before the Peer. “If she were already married to me, a monster could not marry her,” he leered triumphantly.
“To you!” shrieked Percy Vere, crushing his muffin to a pulp.
“You weazened, wild, old, whiskered dunce,
Be off! Be gone! Get out, at—at—at—at—”