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the door.
     
                "Alack for
might-have-been," said the girl, and kissed him.
     
                "Ha, Barber fellow!
Open!" came from the door. The girl slid to her feet, gathered her gowns
and slippers with a single motion, danced over to the window and leaped lightly
to the sill. Barber jumped to his feet, but before he could reach the window
she was gone, her gauzy wings glittering on the downbeat in the moonlight. He
returned to the door and tapped it with the key. It opened to reveal Oberon
talking amicably with Titania and Gosh. "So, a good day, then my
love," said the King, "and goodhap."
     
                He bowed, came through and
closed the door after him, then clapped Barber lustily on the back. "Well
and wisely done, fellow! You have our royal favor. But, hist, take an older
man's advice—if you must make merry with our Fairyland doxies, choose one
without wings."
     
                "Why?" asked
Barber, wondering how much Oberon knew about the incident in the chair, and how
he could know.
     
                "Take thought, man.
Merely imagine."
     
                "Oh."
     
                "Now then, to the next
matter—your garb. It's not fit for the court. Stand here before me."
     
                Oberon made a series of
rapid passes with his hands, reciting:
     
    -
     
    "One,
two, three, jour,
    Doublet
and hose, such as Huon bore;
    Uno',
do', tre', quaro',
    Clothe
to warm both flesh and marrow,
    Ichi,
ni, san, shi
    Garb
him then, as he should be ..."
     
    -
     
                Fred Barber felt
a soft impact; looked down, and to his utter horror found himself covered with
a complete suit of tree frogs—hundreds of them, clinging in a continuous layer
by their sucker-toed feet. He yelped and jumped. All the tree frogs jumped too,
cascading over the floor, the furniture and the frenzied King, who was bouncing
with rage.
     
                "Ten thousand
devils!" he shrieked. "Pox, murrain, plague, disaster upon this
stinking puke-stocking shaping! I'll—"
     
                Barber recovered first,
bowing amid the leaping batrachians, his diplomatic training asserting itself
enough to make him remember that distraction was the first step in curing a
fury like this. "I beg Your Majesty's pardon for making so much trouble.
But if I may trouble you still further, would you explain to me what this
shaping is? If I am to serve Your Majesty, it seems I ought to know about
it."
     
                Oberon's rage came to a halt
in mid-flight. He rubbed his chin. "The curse of our domain, and
insult to our sovranty, lad. If with your mortal wit you can do aught to alter
them, all favor's yours to the half of the kingdom. Look you—you come from a
land where natural law is immutable as the course of the planets. But in our misfortunate
realm there's nought fixed; the very rules of life change at times, altogether,
without warning and in no certain period ... Oh, fear nothing; we'll have the
royal tailor in to—"
     
                "And these changes are
called shapings?"
     
                "Aye; you have hit it.
There's an old prophecy gives us to hope, somewhat about a hero with a red
beard, whose coming will change the laws of these laws, but I'm grown rank
skeptic in the matter. There is this also, that with each shaping things grow
faintly worse, by no more than a mustard seed, d'you understand? Yon fairies in
the Queen's train, when once they began playing, hopped happily all night. Now
they grow tired, need a new stimulus, which accounts for my lady's humor, who
likes joy about her. And here's my great jewel, that before the last shaping
had the property of—Why, where's the bauble?"
     
                Oberon looked down at the
starry front of his doublet. " 'Tis gone—I know, 'twas that brown fiend,
the Hindu cutpurse. I've been robbed! I—the King-robbed in my