For some minutes the King and his courtiers only looked at each other in astonishment . ` What kind of animal is that which can work magic of this sort ? ' asked he . And the young man told him that it was called a cat , and that he had bought it for six shillings . And the King answered : ` Because of the luck you have brought me , in freeing my palace from the plague which has tormented me for many years , I will give you the choice of two things . Either you shall be my Prime Minister , or else you shall marry my daughter and reign after me . Say , which shall it be ? ' ` The princess and the kingdom , ' said the young man . And so it was . -LSB- From Islandische Marchen . -RSB- The Prince Who Would Seek Immortality Once upon a time , in the very middle of the middle of a large kingdom , there was a town , and in the town a palace , and in the palace a king . This king had one son whom his father thought was wiser and cleverer than any son ever was before , and indeed his father had spared no pains to make him so . He had been very careful in choosing his tutors and governors when he was a boy , and when he became a youth he sent him to travel , so that he might see the ways of other people , and find that they were often as good as his own . It was now a year since the prince had returned home , for his father felt that it was time that his son should learn how to rule the kingdom which would one day be his . But during his long absence the prince seemed to have changed his character altogether . From being a merry and light-hearted boy , he had grown into a gloomy and thoughtful man . The king knew of nothing that could have produced such an alteration . He vexed himself about it from morning till night , till at length an explanation occurred to him -- the young man was in love ! Now the prince never talked about his feelings -- for the matter of that he scarcely talked at all ; and the father knew that if he was to come to the bottom of the prince 's dismal face , he would have to begin . So one day , after dinner , he took his son by the arm and led him into another room , hung entirely with the pictures of beautiful maidens , each one more lovely than the other .
` My dear boy , ' he said , ` you are very sad ; perhaps after all your wanderings it is dull for you here all alone XXXXX me .
by during for from in into than to upon with