Because, of course, another consequence of the island's having spun the wrong way is that all the things we have to make—buns and cakes and shortbread—grow on trees and bushes, but in Rotundia they have to make their cauliflowers and cabbages and carrots and apples and onions, just as our cooks make puddings and turnovers.

Tom gave all the buns to the dragon, saying: "Here, try to eat a little. You'll soon feel better then."

The dragon ate up the buns, nodded rather ungraciously, and began to lick his wing again. So Tom left him and went back to the town with the news, and everyone was so excited at a real live dragon's being on the island—a thing that had never happened before—that they all went out to look at it, instead of going to the prize-giving, and the Lord Chief Schoolmaster went with the rest. Now, he had Tom's prize, the History of Rotundia, in his[28] pocket—the one bound in calf, with the Royal arms on the cover—and it happened to drop out, and the dragon ate it, so Tom never got the prize after all. But the dragon, when he had gotten it, did not like it.

"Perhaps it's all for the best," said Tom. "I might not have liked that prize either, if I had gotten it."

It happened to be a Wednesday, so when the Princess's friends were asked what they would like to do, all the little dukes and marquises and earls said, "Let's go and see the dragon." But the little duchesses and marchionesses and countesses said they were afraid.

Then Princess Mary Ann spoke up royally, and said, "Don't be silly, because it's only in fairy stories and histories of England and things l