“All ready now!” went on the gold fish.  “Behold the fairy prince.  Behold!  Behold!” and she made a booming noise under the water, just like the big bass drum, when a man in the circus jumps over sixteen elephants and a quarter all at once.

Then, all of a sudden, oh! maybe in a second and a little more what should come out of that hole in the side of the bank, just above the water, what, I say, should come out of that hole—­now be careful, take tight hold of the arms of the chair, and hold your breaths, so as not to be disappointed, what should come out of the hole but a big, brownish-black, spotted with red and yellow, wrinkle-legged, hard-shelled, sharp-beaked mud turtle!  There, now!

At first the duck children were so frightened and surprised that they did not know what to do or say.  They had expected something so different.  Did you?  Well, I’m awfully sorry, but you know I’m not responsible.  I merely tell what happens.

“Why, that isn’t a fairy prince!” cried Jimmie, speaking first.

“Of course not,” added Lulu.

Then the gold fish came quite close to them and whispered something.

“Do you know,” said Fan Tail, “I have always had my doubts about it myself.  He says he’s the fairy prince—­insists on it, in fact,—­and he has it engraved on his visiting cards.  But I have my doubts, only I don’t dare say so, for you see I work for him, run errands and the like of that; so far be it from me to say he is not a fairy prince.  I have, however, guided you to him.  Behold, the fairy prince!” and she called the last real loudly, for the mud turtle was looking right at her.  Then she added in a whisper:  “But I have my doubts.”

“Hush!  Oh hush, please!” begged Alice.  “Of course he is a fairy prince!  They are always disguised like that—­always appearing as something different from what they really are, you know.  Sometimes they are toads, and sometimes frogs, and sometimes mud turtles, I suppose, though I never heard of any of the last kind.  But of course he is a fairy prince.”  Then she bowed again, three times, and said:  “Fairy prince, I salute thee.”

“Fairy nothing!” grunted Jimmie.  “He is no more a fairy than I am.”

Then the mud turtle heard them talking, and he stuck his head farther out of the shell, and he looked around with his snaky neck, and he came a little more out of the hole, and said: 

“Of course I am the fairy prince.  Everybody knows that.  I’ve been a fairy prince for ever and ever so long.”  And then he sneezed, just to show that, though he was a fairy prince, he was not proud.

“What shall I do, O fairy prince, to change you back into your own rightful shape?” asked Alice.  “Tell me, and I will do it at once.  Dost thou need three drops of magical water?”

“No,” answered the mud turtle, “not any at all, thank you, so much.  I am a fairy prince, but I am satisfied with my shape as I am; and I do not want to change.  I have always been this way, and I always want to stay so.  Please be so kind as to go away.  I want to eat my dinner.”