“Why shouldn’t I set out to make my fortune?” he cried.
The princess laughed.
“You are a furnace boy,” she explained. “They don’t make fortunes. Who would mind the furnace if they did?”
Hazen sprang to his feet.
“That can’t be the way the world is!” he cried. “Not when it’s so pretty and all stuck full of goldfish and fountains and flowers and parks. If I went, I would make my fortune!”
The princess crossed her little slippered feet and looked at him. And when he met her eyes, he was ashamed of his anger, though not of his earnestness, and he bowed again; and all the kings of all the courts of his ancestors were in the bow.
“After all,” said the princess, “we don’t have the furnace in Summer. And you bow so nicely that I b’lieve I will help you to make your fortune. Anyhow, I can help you to set out.”
Hazen was in the greatest joy. The princess bade him wait where he was, and she ran away and found somewhere a cast-off page boy’s dress and a cap with a plume and a little silver horn and a wallet, with some bread. These she brought to Hazen just as footsteps sounded on the stairs, and nursery governesses and chamberlains and foot-pages and many whose names are as dust came running pell-mell down the stairs, all looking for the princess.
“Hide in that alcove,” said the princess, “till I am gone. Then put on this dress and go out at the east gate which no one can lock. And as you go by the east wing, do not look up at my window or I will wave my hand and somebody may see you going. Now good-bye.”
But at that Hazen was suddenly wretched.