His lady mother was always wrought with him whenever she caught him perched high up in a tree.
"A monkey's way should not be a prince's toil."
That was the grand, lecturing maxim she always liked to deploy to admonish his wild behavior. But say what she might, the Queen had never actually been able to stop him.
You would ought to burn and cut down every tree in the kingdom to keep me on the dirt, Mother, Basil thought with a silent, roguish grin as the rough skin of the tree bit into his palm.
