CHAPTER XI

AGAIN WE MEET THE PRINCESS, THE PALACE AND THE MAGICIAN

The General of the Guard took a knapsack from his back and spread a large piece of silk upon the ground. Then with heavy twine, he fastened the four corners of the silk to the Magic Umbrella.

“Gran’ma, Janey and Mrs. Tiptoe, you ladies can ride in the Magic Umbrella and we men will ride underneath,” he directed. And when all had taken their places, the General of the Guard told Gran’ma to wish the Magic Umbrella to fly to the Princess’ Castle, and away they started.

The City of Nite was built upon a beautiful island and in the center stood the wonderful Castle, its tall spires and towers rising high above all the other buildings.

As they approached the Castle, the Magic Umbrella settled upon one of the broad terraces. The Princess came running out to meet them as the party climbed out of the Magic Umbrella.

Mrs. Tiptoe had to tell the Princess of her adventure as they went inside the Castle.

“And to think you were the Soft-Voiced Cow,” laughed the Princess, “and that none of us suspected it! My, I am glad we are all safe and sound and home again!”

“We are very glad too,” Gran’ma said, “but Gran’pa, Janey, Johnny and I are still very far from home!”

“Oh, you will like it here,” the Princess laughed as she threw her arms about Gran’ma. “And I shall have you live here with me all the time in the Castle, for we owe everything to you!”

“You saved the Princess from the Green Jar and charmed away the wicked magic from Mrs. Tiptoe!” exclaimed the General of the Guard.

“We must keep you with us always,” the Princess said as the party walked into a great hall. “Now, Gran’pa,” she continued, “I will let Mr. Tiptoe show you and Johnny to your rooms, and when all have dressed we are going to have a nice little party all to ourselves. I will take Gran’ma and Janey and Mrs. Tiptoe to their rooms and we will meet you in the Banquet Hall very soon.”

The Princess led Gran’ma, Janey and Mrs. Tiptoe to a wonderful room with ivory and gold beds. Beautiful draperies hung from the windows, and a merry little fountain tinkled in one corner of the room.

“Here are your clothes,” the Princess said, opening a closet and displaying rows and rows of wonderful silk and satin dresses.

Janey’s eyes were the size of saucers. Some of the dresses were pink—and pink was her favorite color!

“I had them all made to fit you and Janey,” she told Gran’ma. “I am so sorry I did not know that Mrs. Tiptoe was to be with us, but she may have one of Janey’s dresses, I’m sure!”

“Indeed she may!” Janey cried. “Oh, thank you so much, Your Majesty!”

“Now, see here!” cried the Princess, pretending to be very stern. “Do not ‘Your Majesty’ me! I am to be plain Nidia to all of you, so you must begin to get used to calling me that!”

When the Princess, Mrs. Tiptoe, Gran’ma and Janey reached the Banquet Hall, Gran’pa, Johnny and the Tiptoe Brothers were there waiting for them.

“Whee! How fine you all look!” Johnny cried, as he saw the beautiful silk and satin dresses.

“You look fine, too!” Janey exclaimed. “All of you!”

“How did the Princess know our measurements?” Johnny whispered to Janey as they took their seats at the table.

“I don’t know,” Janey replied, rather puzzled. “Just see Gran’pa! My, doesn’t he look nice in that purple velvet!”

“We are very anxious to know how you got rid of the wicked Witch when you returned to the Castle,” Gran’ma said to the Princess.

The Princess laughed a merry laugh and replied, “I am afraid you will be disappointed with my adventure, for when I left you upon the mountain side at Mr. Tiptoe’s Cottage-Cave I wished the Magic Umbrella to take me to my mother, but as I flew over the City of Nite I changed my mind.

“‘No,’ I said to myself, ‘I will go right to the Castle and face the wicked Witch!’

“And so I wished to go to the Castle instead of to my mother. And when I climbed out of the Magic Umbrella I ran right into the Castle and it was empty! I went through all the rooms and found no one; the wicked Witch was not there at all!”

“Did you go into the little room at the top of the Blue Tower?” Mr. Tiptoe asked. “That is where she was the day Mrs. Tiptoe and I found her.”

“Yes, I went there, too,” the Princess replied, “and cobwebs were all over everything. I knew the wicked creature had not been there for months.”

“For years, to be more exact,” interrupted the Chief of Detectives.

“How do you know?” the Princess asked the Chief of Detectives in surprise.

The Chief of Detectives explained.

“I started to tell of my adventure to Gran’ma and the others on the mountain side,” he said, “but I was so glad to see my brother coming across the meadow I forgot what I was saying.”

“Tell us now! Perhaps you can clear up the mystery!” the Princess cried. “No one in the City of Nite could tell me anything! Please tell us all you know, and all about your adventure!”

“But you had not finished telling us of your own experience,” the Chief of Detectives answered.

“There is very little more to tell,” said the Princess. “When I discovered that the wicked Witch was not in the Castle and that she had not been here for some time, I rang the Great Bell five times. This, as you know, is the signal for every one in the City of Nite to have a holiday. And when the good people heard the Great Bell pealing, they came running to the Castle and found me! That is all there is to tell, except that every thing inside the Castle had grown dreadfully musty, so I had everything cleaned, and new draperies and then I sent the General of the Guard in the Magic Umbrella to bring you here.”

When the Princess had finished the Chief of Detectives told his story.

“When the Princess disappeared,” he began, “I was away on my vacation and word did not reach me for four days. But you may rest assured that when I did hear I hurried back to the City of Nite as fast as possible.

“I asked everyone I met about the strange disappearance of the Princess, for I could not believe that the Princess had been changed into an old woman. No one could help me. People just stood around looking at one another as if they were stunned. At first I thought it unwise to visit this old Witch for fear she might find out that I distrusted her, but upon second thought I changed my plans and went to see her.

“I suppose I may tell our good friends of the secret passage?” the Chief of Detectives interrupted himself to ask the Princess, and being given permission he went on:

“There are secret passages built in the walls of the Castle which lead to many of the rooms, and by which anyone who knows how to open the secret doors may escape. Now I, of course, knew all the doors and all the buttons that open them, so I went through all the secret passages and from their peepholes I looked into all the rooms. But I could never time my visits just right until about a year ago.

“Then one day as I walked through one of the secret passages, I heard someone talking, so I hastily glued my eyes to the peephole, you may be sure. But when I looked through, I did not see the Witch in the room! Instead, there stood a queer man with a tall hat and a crooked stick.

“I could not quite make out what he was saying, for he was only talking to himself and at times merely mumbled his words, but I learned enough to know that he had no business there.”

“Jingles the Magician!” cried the Princess, Gran’ma and Janey in one breath.

“You are right,” continued the Chief of Detectives. “I heard him mutter something about a book of rhymes, and he played with a queer little pouch with tassels!”

“The Magic Whistle!” cried Gran’pa and Johnny.

“I don’t know what it was,” said the Chief of Detectives. “But as I watched the queer man he took off his tall hat and coat and put them in a closet; then he took out a white wig and a great cloak and bonnet and put them on. I saw then that he and the Witch were one and the same and I knew positively that neither was our beloved Princess. I did not know what to do! At first I thought of calling the people together and telling them of what I had seen, but then, thought I, ‘Should I do that, I may never discover what has become of the Princess.’

“So I watched at the secret passage for days and days until once again I was rewarded. There was the queer man again, sitting and reading a large book and trying to memorize some verses. Then I watched him until I saw him put on a pair of spectacles. He stared for a moment for all the world like a near-sighted person. Then he skipped up and down.

“‘Someone is drinking my lemonade,’ he cried, looking through them. ‘Hooray! Now I will have someone else to work my magic on!’ And with this, he jumped upon his large book and flew right out of the window!”

“It was Janey who drank at the lemonade spring!” cried Johnny.

“I did not know that, of course,” said the Chief of Detectives. “However, when the wicked man left, I went into the room and looked about. In the pocket of the cloak which the Witch had worn, I discovered the tiny powder puff which Johnny puffed upon the Soft-Voiced Cow, or upon Mrs. Tiptoe, I should have said! I also found a tiny book of magic and a few brass buttons and other charms.

“I took the powder puff, the tiny book of magic and the charms; I also made a drawing of the queer designs upon the floor. Then I left everything else just as I had found it and went home.

“I studied the book of magic a long time before I finally tested out some magic myself. First, I copied the designs upon a large white rug then, following the directions in the little book, I placed the charms about as directed, then I puffed a bit of powder into a tin cup and touched a match to it. When the powder puffed up into the room, I went out of the door as fast as I could. But when I saw the room had cleared, I ventured back and found written upon the slate—I forgot to mention that one of the things called for in the book was a slate and pencil—‘Top of Whippoorwill Mountain. Electric wires strung meadow. Capture!’

“I puzzled and puzzled over this message, and I tried the magic three times. The same message always came upon the slate! Then I decided to go to the top of Whippoorwill Mountain and see the wires, but there were no wires there!

“‘Perhaps it means that I am to put the wires there,’ I thought. ‘At least I can try it!’ So I had the Royal Electrician fix up the wires about the meadow, and then I built the little hut and filled it with ice cream and popcorn and cigars, so that if I accidentally caught any innocent persons, I could give them candy cigars and popcorn and ice cream. And right there I stayed until, as you know, I caught old Jingles.”

“You have caught old Jingles the Magician!” cried the Princess.

“Yes,” Gran’ma laughed, “and he also caught Janey and Johnny and the Soft-Voiced Cow and myself!”

“I had forgotten the Princess did not know that I had caught the wicked creature and that we left him jumping to beat the band and hanging on to the electric wire,” the Chief of Detectives said. Then, turning to the Princess, he continued, “I was careful to turn on the current so that he would have a good dose too!”

“I am truly glad we have all escaped from him,” the Princess said and as all had finished eating by this time she asked Gran’ma, “How would you like to ride about the City of Nite and see the sights?”

“Oh, let’s do!” Gran’ma cried, jumping up. “I have always wanted to go to a City and we never felt we had enough money to do so when we were upon the Earth!”

“Well, you will find everything in the City of Nite free to all of you,” laughed the Princess, “for everyone knows all about you and what you have done for us, so if you are all of the same mind we can start right now.”

“Let’s walk!” said Gran’ma, when the Princess said something about carriages. “Then we can all be together and look in the shop windows and have lots more fun!”

“I often walk about the town, or at least, I used to walk about, before I was put in the Green Jar,” the Princess replied.

“It’s nice to get up from the table and not have to worry about doing the dishes,” said Gran’ma. “Let’s start right away. Gran’pa, you’ll have to buy a bag of peanuts apiece. We always have peanuts when we go to town,” she explained to the Princess.

“Had we better take an umbrella?” asked Gran’pa. “One usually carries an umbrella when one goes to town. It might rain.”

“Perhaps it would be as well to take the Magic Umbrella with us,” the Princess laughed, although she could not understand just why Gran’pa should wish to carry one, for it very seldom rained in the beautiful City.

So the happy visitors walked down the great steps of the Castle with the Princess and her old friends and into the shopping center of the City of Nite, where all the kindly faced people bowed to them all as they passed.

The Princess stopped and talked with the people and gave presents to the little children whom they met.

At the first store they came to Gran’pa tried to buy some peanuts, but the shopkeeper would not accept anything for them.

“You couldn’t pay anyhow,” Johnny laughed. “You haven’t any Moon money, it’s all Earth money in your purse.”

“To be sure it is,” Gran’pa replied. “I had forgotten that!”

The Princess took them into all the ice cream parlors and candy stores in the City, and when they returned to the Castle all were loaded with bundles.

As they neared the steps of the Castle, Gran’pa shouted, “Look at the crowd near the Castle door. It must be people who have come to see you about something!”

The Princess looked worried. “No,” she replied, “they would never crowd about the Castle door in such a disorderly manner. Something has happened!”

Just as they started up the long flight of steps, the crowd separated and as the people fell back on either side a tall form dashed out of the doorway waving his crooked stick and shouting hoarsely.

“Old Jingles, the Magician!” the Princess cried as she sank to the steps.