After this they walked on, and the Prince said he would ask Jack the Giant-killer to supper. Little Boy replied that he would be proud to meet him. Just as they came near to the house, which was built of pearls and rubies, the Prince said: "Alas! here comes that tiresome fool, Humpty Dumpty." When Little Boy looked, he saw a short man very crooked in the back, and with a head all to one side, not having been well mended by the doctors, as you may recall. Also his mouth was very large, which was a pity, because when he stopped before them and bowed in a polite way, all of a sudden he opened this great mouth and gaped; and when poor, sleepy Little Boy saw this, what could he do but gape for company, and at once fall down sound asleep before the kind Prince could move?
"Alas! fool," said Fine Ear, "why must you gape at a mortal? You knew what would happen. It was lucky you did not sneeze."
Meanwhile, there lay Little Boy sound asleep, and what was to be done? At last he was carried into the house of Goody Two-Shoes and put on a bed. Every one knew that he could not be waked up, and so they put fairy food in his mouth twice a day, and just let him alone, so that for several years he slept soundly, and by reason of being fed with fairy food grew tall and beautiful; what was more strange, his clothes grew also.
At the end of seven years a great Sayer of Sooth came by on his way to visit his fairy godmother, and when he heard about Little Boy's sleep he stood still and uttered a loud Sooth. When Goody Two-Shoes heard it she was sorry, because it was told her that Little Boy would never wake until he was carried back to the country of mortals, when he would wake up at once. Now by this time she had come to love him very much, and was sorry to part with him, because in seven years he had never spoken one cross word!
[Illustration: "SHE PUT AROUND LITTLE BOY'S NECK A FAIRY KISS"]
But Sooths must be obeyed; so she sent for a gentle Giant, and told him to carry Little Boy to the Queen's tailor and to dress him like a fairy Prince, and to set him down on the roadside near his father's house. Then when the Giant took him up in his great arms, all sound asleep, she put around Little Boy's neck a fairy kiss tied fast to a gold chain, and this was for good luck. After this the Giant walked away, and Goody Two-Shoes went into the house and cried for two days and a night.