Now, I have nothing to say against uncles in general. They are usually
very excellent people, and very convenient to little boys and girls.
Even the "cruel uncle" of the "Babes in the Wood" I believe to be quite
an exceptional character. And this "cruel uncle" of whom I am telling
was, I hope, an exception, too.

He did not mean to be cruel. If anybody had called him so, he would
have resented it extremely: he would have said that what he did was done
entirely for the good of the country. But he was a man who had always
been accustomed to consider himself first and foremost, believing that
whatever he wanted was sure to be right, and therefore he ought to have
it. So he tried to get it, and got it too, as people like him very often
do. Whether they enjoy it when they have it is another question.

Therefore he went one day to the council chamber, determined on making
a speech, and informing the ministers and the country at large that the
young King was in failing health, and that it would be advisable to send
him for a time to the Beautiful Mountains. Whether he really meant to
do this, or whether it occurred to him afterward that there would be an
easier way of attaining his great desire, the crown of Nomansland, is a
point which I cannot decide.

But soon after, when he had obtained an order in council to send the
King away, which was done in great state, with a guard of honor composed
of two whole regiments of soldiers,--the nation learned, without much
surprise, that the poor little Prince--nobody ever called him king
now--had gone a much longer journey than to the Beautiful Mountains.

He had fallen ill on the road and died within a few hours; at least so
declared the physician in attendance and the nurse who had been sent