Harry was playing with his letter blocks one afternoon, when a prince
came to visit him.
Harry knew the prince very well, indeed. As soon as the prince came into
the room Harry said:
“Hullo, old fellow, is that you?”
Was not that a very strange way to greet a prince?
And wasn’t it stranger yet for Harry to say next:
“Come, sit up, old boy, and give us your--”
Was it hand Harry was going to say? No, indeed, it was paw. “Sit up, old
boy, and give us your paw.”
Prince was a beautiful dog, as black as a coal. Indeed, his real name,
his whole name, was Edward, the Black Prince. Now you must ask somebody
to tell you about the man who was called the “Black Prince,” the man for
whom Harry’s dog was named.
When Harry asked Prince to give his paw, the dog did not do it as
quickly as he ought to have done.
Did Harry beat him for that? No, indeed. Did he say, “Never mind,
Prince, you need not obey me if you do not want to?” No, indeed, again.
He sat up himself, and then he made Prince sit up on his hind legs. Then
he ordered Prince to give his paw. Prince did so. Then Harry made him
do it again, then again and again and again, until the dog seemed to
understand that he must learn to obey when he was spoken to.
After Prince appeared to have learned that lesson quite perfectly, Harry
taught him something new.
He taught him to stand on his hind legs and hold a pipe in his mouth.
This he soon did so well that Harry clapped his hands and cried,
“Good, good, you smoke as well as his royal highness, the Black Prince,
himself.”
Which remark showed that Harry had not yet begun to study history. If
he had, he would have known that in the country where the Black Prince
lived, tobacco was never heard of until many, many, MANY years after his
death.