"Oh yes; marry me, marry me, only marry me!"
The Queen said, "Oh, nonsense," because she had just remembered the
elixir.
But the tailor answered, "It isn't nonsense--it really isn't. It's true
I'm married already; but I'll knock my wife on the head, and then I'll
be free."
But before the Queen could answer anything at all there began a sudden
growling sound that resolved itself into a succession of footsteps
coming rapidly down wooden steps, and, in a moment, a door burst open
just behind the tailor's back. There was an old woman with a great broom
just behind it.
"Ah, would ye now! murder your wife, a respectable married woman, for
the sake of a hussy that comes dropping down out of the chimney-tops.
I'll teach you."
And with one sweep of her broom she knocked the poor little tailor off
his board, and made a dash at the Queen.
But the Queen took to her heels and ran off.
"Why, she's worse than Mrs. Hexer," she said to herself. "But really
this elixir is a great nuisance. It makes it impossible to have any
peace. But I wonder what all the flags and decorations are about."
Just at that moment two people, who appeared to be a servant-girl and
her mother, came out of a neighbouring house. They were very gay in
holiday costume.
"What is to happen to-day?" the Queen asked.
And the mother answered, "Why, don't you know? The Queen is twenty-one
to-day, and she's going to marry the Regent, Lord Blackjowl."
"Going to marry the Regent!" the Queen said. "Why, who told you so?"
"Everybody knows it," the mother answered.
"But how did everybody get to know it?" the Queen asked.