“Oh, princess,” he said, “I want to be wise and really good and loved and beautiful, and I have come to the king’s library to find out how to do it.”
“Who are you, that want so many ’surd things?” asked the princess, curiously.
“I am the furnace boy,” said the poor prince, “and my other name is Hazen.”
At this the princess laughed aloud—for when he had bowed she had fancied that he might be at least the servant to some nobleman at the court, too poor to keep his foot-page in livery.
“The furnace boy indeed!” she cried. “And handling my father’s books. If you had what you ’serve, you’d be put in pwison.”
At that Hazen bowed again very sadly, and was about to put back his book when footsteps sounded in the hall, and nursery governesses and chamberlains and foot-pages and lackeys and many whose names are as dust came running down the stairs, all looking for the princess. And the princess, who was not frightened, was suddenly sorry for little Hazen, who was.
“Listen,” she said, “you bow so nicely that you may hide in that alcove and I will not tell them that you are there. But don’t you come here to-morrow morning when I come to read my book, or I can’t tell what will happen.”
Hazen had just time to slip in the alcove when all the nursery governesses, chamberlains, foot-pages, and those whose names are as dust burst in the room.
“I was just coming,” said the princess, haughtily.
But when she was gone, Hazen, in his safe alcove, did not once look at his big leather book. He did not even open it. Instead he sat staring at the floor, and thinking and thinking and thinking of the princess. And it was as if his mind were opened, and as if all the princess thoughts in the world were running in, one after another.