The Happy Prince Page #13

The Happy Prince and Other Tales is a collection of stories for children by Oscar Wilde first published in May 1888. It contains five stories: "The Happy Prince", "The Nightingale and the Rose", "The Selfish Giant", "The Devoted Friend", and "The Remarkable Rocket".

• Children

								


“Ah! the higher things of life, how fine they are!” said the Duck; “and
that reminds me how hungry I feel”: and she swam away down the stream,
saying, “Quack, quack, quack.”

“Come back! come back!” screamed the Rocket, “I have a great deal to say
to you”; but the Duck paid no attention to him.  “I am glad that she has
gone,” he said to himself, “she has a decidedly middle-class mind”; and
he sank a little deeper still into the mud, and began to think about the
loneliness of genius, when suddenly two little boys in white smocks came
running down the bank, with a kettle and some faggots.

“This must be the deputation,” said the Rocket, and he tried to look very
dignified.

“Hallo!” cried one of the boys, “look at this old stick!  I wonder how it
came here”; and he picked the rocket out of the ditch.

“OLD Stick!” said the Rocket, “impossible!  GOLD Stick, that is what he
said.  Gold Stick is very complimentary.  In fact, he mistakes me for one
of the Court dignitaries!”

“Let us put it into the fire!” said the other boy, “it will help to boil
the kettle.”

So they piled the faggots together, and put the Rocket on top, and lit
the fire.

“This is magnificent,” cried the Rocket, “they are going to let me off in
broad day-light, so that every one can see me.”

“We will go to sleep now,” they said, “and when we wake up the kettle
will be boiled”; and they lay down on the grass, and shut their eyes.

The Rocket was very damp, so he took a long time to burn.  At last,
however, the fire caught him.

“Now I am going off!” he cried, and he made himself very stiff and
straight.  “I know I shall go much higher than the stars, much higher
than the moon, much higher than the sun.  In fact, I shall go so high
that—”

Fizz! Fizz! Fizz! and he went straight up into the air.

“Delightful!” he cried, “I shall go on like this for ever.  What a
success I am!”

But nobody saw him.

Then he began to feel a curious tingling sensation all over him.

“Now I am going to explode,” he cried.  “I shall set the whole world on
fire, and make such a noise that nobody will talk about anything else for
a whole year.”  And he certainly did explode.  Bang! Bang! Bang! went the
gunpowder.  There was no doubt about it.

But nobody heard him, not even the two little boys, for they were sound
asleep.

Then all that was left of him was the stick, and this fell down on the
back of a Goose who was taking a walk by the side of the ditch.

“Good heavens!” cried the Goose.  “It is going to rain sticks”; and she
rushed into the water.

“I knew I should create a great sensation,” gasped the Rocket, and he
went out.
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