Stranica 185 [185]
KING BIZARRE AND PRINCE CHARMING
These maxims tickled Charming’s pride; and at twelve
years of age the beautiful child, with precocious firmness,
had steadily refused to learn the alphabet. Three teachers,
chosen from the most able and patient instructors, a priest,
a philosopher, and a colonel, had attempted in turn to
bend his youthful obstinacy; but the priest had wasted his
philosophy, the philosopher his tactics, and the colonel his
Latin. Left master of the field of battle, Charming listened
to nothing but his caprice, and lived lawless and uncon¬
strained. As stubborn as a mule, as irascible as a turkey¬
cock, as dainty as a cat, and as idle as an adder, but an
accomplished prince withal, he was the pride of the beauti¬
ful country of Wild Oats, and the hope and love of a people
that esteemed nothing in their kings but grace and beauty.
II
PAZZA
Notwithstanding he had been brought up at court, King
Bizarre was a man of sense. Charming’s ignorance was far
from ‘pleasing to him, and he often asked himself with
anxiety what would become of his kingdom in the hands
of a prince whom the basest of flatterers might easily deceive.
But what was he to do, what means could he employ with
a child that a worshiped wife had bequeathed to him in
dying? Rather than see his son weep, Bizarre would have
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