The papa rubbed his forehead. “I have such a bad memory for names. Hold on! Wait a minute! I remember now! Their names were Butterflyflutterby and Flutterbybutterfly.” Of course he had just thought up the names.
“And which was which, uncle dear?” asked the niece, not only very respectfully, but very affectionately, too; she was so afraid he would get mad again, and stop altogether.
“Why, I should think you would know a girl's name when you heard it. Butterflyflutterby was the Prince and Flutterbybutterfly was the Princess.”
“I don't see how we're ever going to keep them apart,” sighed the niece.
“You've got to keep them apart,” said the papa. “Because it's the great thing about the story that if you can't remember which is the Prince and which is the Princess whenever I ask you, the story has to stop. It can't help it, and I can't help it.”
They knew he was just setting a trap for them, and the same thought struck them both at once. They rose up and leaned over the papa, with their arms across and their fluffy heads together in the form of a capital letter A, and whispered in each other's ears, “You say it's one, and I'll say it's the other, and then we'll have it right between us.”
They dropped back and pulled the covering up to their chins, and shouted, “Don't you tell! don't you tell!” and just perfectly wriggled with triumph.
The papa had heard every word; they were laughing so that they whispered almost as loud as talking; but he pretended that he had not understood, and he made up his mind that he would have them yet. “A little and a more,” he said, “and I should never have gone on again.”
“Go on! Go on!” they called out, and then they wriggled and giggled till anybody would have thought they were both crazy.
“Well, where was I?” This was another of the papa's tricks to gain time. Whenever he could not think of anything more, he always asked, “Well, where was I?” He now added: “Oh yes! I remember! Well, once there were a Prince and a Princess, and their names were Butterflyflutterby and Flutterbybutterfly; and they were both twins, and both orphans; but they made their home with their fairy godmother as long as they were little, and they used to help her about the house for part board, and she helped them about their kingdom, and kept it in good order for them, and left them plenty of time to play and enjoy themselves. She was the greatest person for order there ever was; and if she found a speck of dust or dirt on the kingdom anywhere, she would have out the whole army and make them wash it up, and then sand-paper the place, and polish it with a coarse towel till it perfectly glistened. The father of the Prince and Princess had taken the precaution, before he died, to subdue all his enemies; and the consequence was that the longest kind of peace had set in, and the army had nothing to do but keep the kingdom clean. That was the reason why the fairy godmother had made the General-in-Chief take their guns away, and arm them with long feather-dusters. They marched with the poles on their shoulders, and carried the dusters in their belts, like bayonets; and whenever they came to a place that the fairy godmother said needed dusting—she always went along with them in a diamond chariot—she made the General halloo out: ‘Fix dusters! Make ready! Aim! Dust!’ And then the place would be cleaned up. But the General-in-Chief used to go out behind the church and cry, it mortified him so to have to give such orders, and it reminded him so painfully of the good old times when he would order his men to charge the enemy, and cover the field with gore and blood, instead of having it so awfully spick-and-span as it was now. Still he did what the fairy godmother told him, because he said it was his duty; and he kept his troops supplied with sudsine and dustene, to clean up with, and brushes and towels. The fairy godmother—”