“Is it you, Agaric?  Get in!  There are already three of us, but we can make room for you.  You can take one of these young ladies on your knee.”

The pious Agaric got in.

“What news, worthy father?” asked the young prince.

“Great news,” answered Agaric.  “Can I speak?”

“You can.  I have nothing secret from these two ladies.”

“Sire, Penguinia claims you.  You will not be deaf to her call.”

Agaric described the state of feeling and outlined a vast plot.

“On my first signal,” said he, “all your partisans will rise at once.  With cross in hand and habits girded up, your venerable clergy will lead the armed crowd into Formose’s palace.  We shall carry terror and death among your enemies.  For a reward of our efforts we only ask of you, Sire, that you will not render them useless.  We entreat you to come and seat yourself on the throne that we shall prepare.”

The prince returned a simple answer: 

“I shall enter Alca on a green horse.”

Agaric declared that he accepted this manly response.  Although, contrary to his custom, he had a lady on his knee, he adjured the young prince, with a sublime loftiness of soul, to be faithful to his royal duties.

“Sire,” he cried, with tears in his eyes, “you will live to remember the day on which you have been restored from exile, given back to your people, reestablished on the throne of your ancestors by the hands of your monks, and crowned by them with the august crest of the Dragon.  King Crucho, may you equal the glory of your ancestor Draco the Great!”

The young prince threw himself with emotion on his restorer and attempted to embrace him, but he was prevented from reaching him by the girth of the two ladies, so tightly packed were they all in that historic carriage.

“Worthy father,” said he, “I would like all Penguinia to witness this embrace.”

“It would be a cheering spectacle,” said Agaric.

In the mean time the motor-car rushed like a tornado through hamlets and villages, crushing hens, geese, turkeys, ducks, guinea-fowls, cats, dogs, pigs, children, labourers, and women beneath its insatiable tyres.  And the pious Agaric turned over his great designs in his mind.  His voice, coming from behind one of the ladies, expressed this thought: 

“We must have money, a great deal of money.”

“That is your business,” answered the prince.

But already the park gates were opening to the formidable motor-car.

The dinner was sumptuous.  They toasted the Dragon’s crest.  Everybody knows that a closed goblet is a sign of sovereignty; so Prince Crucho and Princess Gudrune, his wife, drank out of goblets that were covered-over like ciboriums.  The prince had his filled several times with the wines of Penguinia, both white and red.

Crucho had received a truly princely education, and he excelled in motoring, but was not ignorant of history either.  He was said to be well versed in the antiquities and famous deeds of his family; and, indeed, he gave a notable proof of his knowledge in this respect.  As they were speaking of the various remarkable peculiarities that had been noticed in famous women.