“I am not!” the mud turtle called out, only he couldn’t speak very plainly, for the hook was in his mouth.  “I’m a fairy prince, and you had no right to catch me,” he said.

Now, of course, the boy couldn’t hear this, for he didn’t understand the language used by the fairy prince.  But Alice heard him, and so did Lulu and Jimmie.

“Oh, dear!” cried Alice.  “That bad boy has caught the fairy prince!  Let’s run out and make him let the prince go!”

“Oh, no!” answered Lulu, “the boy might catch us then.”

“I know what let’s do,” whispered Jimmie.  “We’ll get in the bushes right behind that boy, and quack and squawk as loud as we can:  That will scare him and make him run away.  I don’t believe the mud turtle is fairy prince, but I don’t want to see him hurt.  Come on, girls.  Now when I say:  ‘ready,’ quack real loud.”

So the three duck children went softly up to a bush right behind where that fisherman—­I mean fisherboy—­was sitting.

All this while the fairy prince was talking to the boy, and asking to be let go, for the hook hurt him.  The boy finally did take the hook out, not hurting the mud-turtle any more than he could help, for he was not a bad boy.

Then, in an instant, or maybe in an instant and a half, Jimmie cried, “Ready!” and he and his sisters quacked as loudly as possible, or even louder.  The boy was just going to put the mud turtle into the basket, but when he heard the quacking, coming right out of the bushes behind him, he was so frightened that he dropped the fairy prince on the ground.

And the fairy prince crawled off as fast as he could, let me tell you.  Then the boy saw that it was the duck children who had frightened him, and he laughed; but they didn’t care, not a bit.

Then the boy said:  “Oh, I guess there is no good fishing here.  I’m going to try a new place,” so he walked away.

Then Alice went right up to the mud turtle and said:  “O fairy prince, art thou much hurt?”

“I am hurt considerable,” said the mud turtle.  “I am hurt in two ways.  My mouth hurts where the hook went in, and my feelings are hurt because the boy didn’t believe I was a fairy prince.”

“Well, if you are a fairy prince,” asked Jimmie, “why didn’t you turn him into an elephant or a lion and scare him, or why didn’t you change him into a bug or a mosquito, so he could fly away?  Why didn’t you do that, eh?”

“There are several reasons,” replied the mud turtle.

“Oh, wilt thou tell them to us?” asked Alice, romantically.

“Not now,” replied the fairy prince, “but I will later.  Return here to-morrow and I will tell you,” and he stretched first one wrinkly leg, and then the other, and went to sleep.

“We will return,” said Alice, and then the duck children hurried home, and to-morrow night you shall hear about a magic trick and why the fairy prince didn’t turn that boy into an elephant or a lion.  That is, if the Thanksgiving turkey doesn’t go to a football game.