allotted journey, though he paused once in a while to shake his bauble
at the staring sun.

"'The stars,' he considered, 'are more sympathetic....

"And thus, the Fairy leading, they came at last to a tall hedge
wherein were a hundred wickets, all being closed; and those who had
passed the Foolish Prince disputed before the hedge and measured the
hundred wickets with thirty-nine articles and with a variety of
instruments, and each man entered at his chosen wicket, and a
butterfly went before him; but no man returned into the open country.

"'Now beyond each wicket,' said the Fairy, 'lies a great crucible, and
by ninety and nine of these crucibles is a man consumed, or else
transmuted into this animal or that animal. For such is the law in
these parts and in human hearts.'

"The Prince demanded how if one found by chance the hundredth wicket?
But she shook her head and said that none of the Tylwydd Teg was
permitted to enter the Disenchanted Garden. Rumor had it that within
the Garden, beyond the crucibles, was a Tree, but whether the fruit of
this Tree were sweet or bitter no person in the Fields could tell, nor
did the Fairy pretend to know what happened in the Garden.

"'Then why, in heaven's name, need a man test any of these wickets?'
cried the Foolish Prince; 'with so much to lose and, it may be,
nothing to gain? For one, I shall enter none of them.'

"But once more she shook her glittering head. 'In your House and in
your Sign it was decreed. Time will be, my Prince; to-day the kid