"One to remember and one to forget, of course, stupid," said the Leprechaun. "Whereever were you educated? Do you think kings want to remember _everything_?"
"It must be very easy forgetting," said Fiona.
"Hardest job in Fairyland," said the Leprechaun. "I suppose you know lots of people with perfect memories; but you never knew one with a perfect forgetfulness, eh? Whitecap there only has to write his book up; but poor Blackcap--he's the one that forgets--his book is written up to start with, and he has to get the pages clean again with his penknife. He never gets them _quite_ clean. They say he has nightmare every night over the things he can't forget altogether."
The King had been talking to one of the officers of his guard. He now rose and held out his sceptre, and there was a great silence round the Fairy ring.
"Before we dance to-night," he said, "we have, as you know, to try two prisoners." He turned to the officer of the guard, and said, "Let them be produced."
The officer at once produced the Urchin from nowhere in particular, as a conjurer produces half-crowns. The boy looked rather large among the Little People, but otherwise he was much as Fiona had last seen him; his shirt and knickerbockers were covered with earthstains and he still had the same length of useless rope coiled round his waist.
But Jeconiah? Was this the prosperous financier, this wretched apology for a living being which the officer held out on the palm of his hand? Not two inches high, its white waistcoat hanging in loose flaps, speechless, and wide-eyed with terror and abject entreaty, it was like the ghost of a parody; the officer had to set it on one of the great toadstools, and mark the place with a stick, lest it should be lost. The King regarded it with interest.
"I understood that the elder prisoner was a very stout man," he said.
"That was so, your Majesty," said the officer. "He was so stout that we thought it useless to attempt to take him through the doorway as he was, so we left his body behind and only brought away the essential part of him. This is all that there really is of him, sire; the rest was wind. When we began to sift him we were afraid that he had no real existence at all, and that there would be nothing to bring before you."