The Laughing Prince: The Story of the Boy Who Could Talk Nonsense

"

So the first lady-in-waiting sent the Princess to her father and as soon as he saw her he began roaring again and saying:

"Wow! Wow! What do you mean—funny old men and silly old women?"

Now whenever the Tsar began roaring and saying, "Wow! Wow!" the Princess always stiffened, and instead of being the sweet and obedient daughter she usually was she became obstinate. Her pretty eyes would flash and her soft pretty face would harden and people would whisper: "Mercy on us, how much she looks like her father!"

"That's just what I mean!" the Princess said. "They're a lot of funny old men and silly old women and I'm tired of them! I want to be amused! I want to laugh!"

"Wow! Wow! Wow!" roared the Tsar. "A fine princess you are! Go straight back to the schoolroom and behave yourself!"

So the little Princess marched out of the throne room holding her head very high and looking so much like the Tsar that the first lady-in-waiting was positively frightened.

The Princess went back to the schoolroom but she did not behave herself. She was really very naughty. When the poor man who knew more than anybody in the world about the influence of the stars upon the destinies of nations came to give her a lesson, she threw his book out the window. When the superannuated old general who was teaching her military manœuvers offered her a diagram on which the enemy was represented by a series of black dots and our soldiers by a series of red dots, she took the paper and tore it in two. And worst of all when the old scholar who was teaching her Turkish—for a princess must be able to speak all languages—dropped his horn spectacles on the floor, she deliberately stepped on them and broke them.

When the Tsar heard all these things he just wow-wowed something terrible.

"Lock that young woman in her chamber!" he ordered. "Feed her on bread and water until she's ready to apologize!"

But the Princess, far from being frightened by this treatment, calmly announced:

"I won't eat even your old bread and water until you send me some one who will make me laugh!