Peregrine (King Algernon) Quotes

“Peregrine put out a hand and caught the hem of her skirt. Since it is almost impossible to continue walking up a staircase in a stately manner while someone is holding onto your dress, the Ordinary Princess stopped and said very haughtily indeed, ‘Will Your Majesty be so good as to release me.’ ‘Don’t show off!’ said Peregrine. ‘I can talk just like that too, if I want to. And I was going to tell you. I really was. That’s what I waited for. Only of course that flatfooted fathead of a Court Chamberlain had to go and spoil it all.’ ‘So you were a real prince—I mean king—all the time,’ said the Ordinary Princess.”

“Presently he said, frowning more than ever, ‘So you were a real princess all the time. Amy, you are a little fibber! And for two pins,” said Peregrine, “I’d give you a good hard spanking!’ The Ordinary Princess stopped looking ashamed of herself and giggled instead. ‘You can’t spank a Royal Highness,’ she said.”

″‘All right,’ said the Ordinary Princess. ‘I’m listening.’ ‘Well, first of all,’ said the King, ‘will you marry me?’ ‘Perry!’ gasped the Ordinary Princess. ‘Yes or no,’ demanded Peregrine. ... ‘Yes,’ said the Ordinary Princess promptly. ‘Darling kitchen maid!’ said Peregrine, catching her into his arms and kissing her. ‘I knew you wouldn’t desert me. Then that’s all right. And now to business. You can’t go on being a kitchen maid, and anyway, you’ve been fired. So you can’t go on staying here.‘”

″‘I thought it would be fun to build ourselves a house to picnic in when the winter comes,’ said Peregrine. The Ordinary Princess clapped her hands with joy. ‘You do have the nicest ideas of anyone I know,’ she said. ‘Now where shall we build it?‘”

″‘Hello,’ said the nice young man. ‘Hello,’ said the Ordinary Princess. They looked at each other in the candlelight, and the nice young man smiled. It was a nice smile that made his eyes crinkle up at the corners, and the Ordinary Princess smiled back. She had a rather nice smile herself, and it wrinkled her freckled nose.”

“For the little hut was still standing in spite of the winter storms and snow. The moss was greener than ever, and primroses, windflowers and wild cherry brightened all the forest. The Ordinary Princess, who had once been an ordinary kitchen maid and was now Queen Amethyst of Ambergeldar, wore Clorinda’s ragged dress, which she had most carefully mended, and cooked the brown trout that Peregrine—who was always Peregrine—caught in the forest streams for their dinner.”

″‘Well, first of all, they are very beautiful,’ said Peregrine, leaning back against a tree trunk and ticking off the points on his fingers. ‘Then secondly and thirdly and fourthly, they all have long golden hair, blue eyes, and the most lovely complexions. Fifthly and sixthly, they are graceful and accomplished. Sev enthly, they have names like Persephone, Sapphire, and Roxanne. And lastly,’ said Peregrine, running out of fingers, ‘they are all excessively proper and extremely dull ... except when they are make-believe princesses who are really kitchen maids!‘”