admiring his wonderful knowledge of physics which led to his adjusting
the weight of the hamper of Christmas presents to his own so nicely
that he could not fall. The Prince liked the talk and the admiration
well enough, but he could not help, also, being a little glum: for he
got no Christmas presents that year.






THE PUMPKIN GIANT.


A very long time ago, before our grandmother's time, or our
great-grandmother's, or our grandmothers' with a very long string of
greats prefixed, there were no pumpkins; people had never eaten a
pumpkin-pie, or even stewed pumpkin; and that was the time when the
Pumpkin Giant flourished.

There have been a great many giants who have flourished since the
world begun, and although a select few of them have been good giants,
the majority of them have been so bad that their crimes even more than
their size have gone to make them notorious. But the Pumpkin Giant was
an uncommonly bad one, and his general appearance and his behavior
were such as to make one shudder to an extent that you would hardly
believe possible. The convulsive shivering caused by the mere mention
of his name, and, in some cases where the people were unusually
sensitive, by the mere thought of him even, more resembled the blue
ague than anything else; indeed was known by the name of "the Giant's