The princess was yet to be won.
Jack-amend-all (36) then said, "Who was the first Lady Magistrate?" (37) After poor Jack was despatched, there came up the citizen (38) of New Jersey who laid plans to kill King George III., but fired some British naval stores instead. He said this business of trying to get the princess was coming to be so hazardous that, old as he was, he would have to be allowed to ask four questions or none at all. The Wizard agreed readily.
"Who (39) made the first use of steam-power in printing?" he asked, and the Wizard answered promptly.
"In what city (40) was the first republican government in America established?" The Wizard again answered promptly.
The man began to look grave. Half his chances were gone. Summoning courage, he propounded this: "The name of the wife (41) of an English admiral who tried to get state secrets from an American gentleman by arranging some social games of whist." The Wizard related the incident, with names of all parties, without an instant's hesitation. The sweat began to start on the man's face. Only one chance remained. "Name the prince, (42) afterwards king of England," said he, desperately, "whose wife sucked the poison from his arm when he had a narrow escape from assassination while on his way home from a Crusade."
The Wizard named the prince and finished the Jerseyman in the same breath.
After that he was without a job for a time. The princess's conditions seemed so hard that, unless she modified them, she was likely, as the Wizard expressed it, "to die an old maid." He was about to give the princess up to that fate when Queen Dick (43) entered.
"Where do you come from?"
"From Frisco." (44)
"What do you want?"