The Queen Who Flew

"Pay!" said the Queen. "What do you mean?"

"Paid for the cakes, I mean," the honey-cake maker said.

"I don't understand you," she answered. "I am the Queen; I never pay for what I eat."

"She is the Queen," the beggar said; "and if you don't take care she'll have your head off."

The honey-cake maker jumped back so suddenly that he sat down in a tub of honey and stuck there doubled up with his knees to his chin.

"O Lord! O Lord!" he said. "What shall I do? what shall I do? – all my cakes gone, and never to be paid!"

"You won't want to be paid if your head's cut off," the beggar said.

But the Queen answered, "Nonsense. No one's going to cut your head off; and I dare say, if you ask them at the palace, they'll pay you, whatever it means. Just pull him out of the tub," she continued to the beggar, for the unfortunate honey-baker, not being able to move, remained gasping in the tub.

So the beggar pulled him out, and, for all his fright, his business spirit did not desert him.

"Will your Majesty deign to sign an order for payment?" he said.

And the Queen answered, "Good gracious, no, I won't; the ink always gets into my finger-nails."

The honey-cake maker bowed lower still. "At least, your Majesty, deign to give me your signet-ring as a token."

"Oh, I'll give you that," the Queen said; and she drew it from her finger.

The honey-cake maker suddenly smote his forehead with his hand, as though an idea had struck him.

"You might carry that ladder out for me," he said to the beggar, indicating a ladder that lay along the passage wall.

The beggar did as he was asked, and placed it against the house.

"Whatever is he going to do now?" the Queen thought to herself, and, being in the street, awaited the turn of events.

Presently the honey-cake maker came out, carrying a pail of black paint and a large brush, and, thus equipped, ascended the ladder and began to paint, under the

"JAMES GRUBB,

Honey-cake Maker,"

"to Her Majesty the Queen and the R —"

But he had got no further than that, when, with tumultuous shouts, a body of soldiers came rushing round a corner, and, seeing the honey-cake maker on the ladder and his door open, they at once tumbled pell-mell into the shop.

No sooner did the unfortunate maker of cakes see this, than, in his haste to descend the ladder, his foot slipped, and he came to the ground, with the paint out of the pot running dismally all over his head.