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If King Grumbelo had not been so anxious to find out who did live inside the house he would certainly have ridden away, there and then; but the more he looked at the beautiful garden and the charming little dwelling of rose leaves, the more he longed for an answer to his question. So he kept his temper with difficulty, and turned once more to the aggravating dragon.
He put spurs to his horse and chased the squirrel until he overtook it, when it immediately turned into a field mouse and sprang into a large hole in the root of an old elm tree; and after it went King Grumbelo without a moment's hesitation. He left his horse outside, and threw his crown on the ground, and crept into the hole as humbly as though he had not been a King at all.
"Lady Whimsical, I want you to come away with me and be my Queen," he said. She shook her head and smiled. "Why not?" demanded King Grumbelo. She smiled again. "Why not?" shouted King Grumbelo at the very top of his voice.
The King looked at him in surprise; for, although he was decidedly small for a dragon, he was certainly much too large and too clumsy to live in a house made entirely of rose leaves. "Can you tell me who lives here?" asked King Grumbelo, politely; for, as every one knows, it is always wise to be polite to a dragon however small he may be.
"What?" cried the King, astounded. "She does not wish to be my Queen?" "Not exactly that, your Majesty," stammered the Comptroller of Whole Holidays; "but she declares she could never marry any one who who " "Who has so ridiculous a name as your Majesty!" said the Professor of Practical Jokes without a moment's hesitation. King Grumbelo stepped down from his throne and merely smiled.
"Then go back and tell her so," said the witch woman, promptly. "Do you think that will make her come out from her house of rose leaves?" asked King Grumbelo. "I should n't wonder," said the Wise Woman of the Wood; "but go and see for yourself.
"I should like nothing better," said King Grumbelo. "But first of all I must confess to you that I have an extremely ugly name. Do you think you can bear to hear it?" "I know it already!" laughed the Lady Whimsical. "Do you suppose I have n't coaxed it out of my dragon long ago? But I, too, have something to confess to you. Do you think it will make you angry?"
Years and years and years ago, in a country that has been long forgotten, there lived a king called Grumbelo. In spite of his extremely ugly name, which was certainly no fault of his, he was young, handsome, and talented; and this made it all the more remarkable that he had never thought of seeking a wife.
There were a hundred and fifty altogether; but although they were without doubt both beautiful and foolish, they never stopped talking for an instant, and not one of them would King Grumbelo have for his Queen. So the Royal Comptroller of Whole Holidays and the learned Professor of Practical Jokes put their heads together once more, and in a few days' time they came again to the King.
"Will nothing induce you to speak just one word to me?" he exclaimed; and then he ran right away from her mocking laughter, and did not even wait to have the rose-leaf door banged in his face. It was a very crestfallen King Grumbelo who knocked at the gates of apple-blossom on the following morning.
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