The Jolly-cum-pop agreed to these terms, and the great gate being opened, he marched out in good order.  “Now,” said he to himself, “the thing for me to do is to get home as fast as I can, or that jailer may change his mind.”  But, being in a great hurry, he turned the wrong way, and walked rapidly into a country unknown to him.  His walk was a very merry one.  “By this time,” he said to himself, “the Prince and his followers have returned to my house, and are tired of watching the rock-splitters and miners.  How amused they will be when they see me come back in this gay suit of green and yellow, with red spots, and with sixteen similar suits upon my arm!  How my own dogs will bark at me!  And how my own servants will not know me!  It is the funniest thing I ever knew of!” And his gay laugh echoed far and wide.  But when he had gone several miles without seeing any signs of his habitation, his gayety abated.  “It would have been much better,” he said, as he sat down to rest under the shade of a tree, “if I had brought with me sixteen rations instead of these sixteen suits of clothes.”

The Jolly-cum-pop soon set out again, but he walked a long distance without seeing any person or any house.  Toward the close of the afternoon he stopped, and, looking back, he saw coming toward him a large party of foot travellers.  In a few moments, he perceived that the person in advance was the jailer.  At this the Jolly-cum-pop could not restrain his merriment.  “How comically it has all turned out!” he exclaimed.  “Here I’ve taken all this trouble, and tired myself out, and have nearly starved myself, and the jailer comes now, with a crowd of people, and takes me back.  I might as well have staid where I was.  Ha! ha!”

The jailer now left his party and came running toward the Jolly-cum-pop.  “I pray you, sir,” he said, bowing very low, “do not cast us off.”

“Who are you all?” asked the Jolly-cum-pop, looking with much surprise at the jailer’s companions, who were now quite near.

“We are myself, my three myrmidons, and our wives and children.  Our situations were such good ones that we married long ago, and our families lived in the upper stories of the prison.  But when all the convicts had left we were afraid to remain, for, should the Potentate again visit the prison, he would be disappointed and enraged at finding no prisoners, and would, probably, punish us grievously.  So we determined to follow you, and to ask you to let us go with you, wherever you are going.  I wrote a report, which I fastened to the great gate, and in it I stated that sixteen of the convicts escaped by the aid of outside confederates, and that seventeen of them mutinied in a body and broke jail.”

“That report,” laughed the Jolly-cum-pop, “your Potentate will not readily understand.”

“If I were there,” said the jailer, “I could explain it to him; but, as it is, he must work it out for himself.”

“Have you any thing to eat with you?” asked the Jolly-cum-pop.