Wet Magic
a week. Of course, he can't be a King anymore now—but they made him Professor of Conchology."
"And has he forgotten he was a King?" asked the Princess.
"Of course: but he was so learned the oblivion-cup wasn't deep enough to make him forget everything: that's why he's a Professor."
"What was he King of?" the Princess asked anxiously.
"He was King of the Barbarians," said the Jailer's son—and the Princess sighed.
"I thought it might have been my father," she said, "he was lost at sea, you know."
The Under-lad nodded sympathetically and went away.
"He doesn't seem such a bad sort," said Mavis.
"No," said the Princess, "I can't understand it. I thought all the Under Folk were terrible fierce creatures, cruel and implacable."
"And they don't seem so very different from us—except to look at," said Bernard.
"I wonder," said Mavis, "what the war began about?"
"Oh—we've always been enemies," said the Princess, carelessly.
"Yes—but how did you begin being enemies?"
"Oh, that," said the Princess, "is lost in the mists of antiquity, before the dawn of history and all that."
"Oh," said Mavis.
But when Ulfin came with the next meal—did I tell you that the Jailer's son's name was Ulfin?—Mavis asked him the same question.
"I don't know—little land-lady," said Ulfin, "but I will find out—my uncle is the Keeper of the National Archives, graven on tables of stone, so many that no one can count them, but there are smaller tables telling what is on the big ones—" he hesitated. "If I
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