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"Hah!" cackled the Rani's aunt. "She can no more talk than she can lick her own backbone!"

"Hush," said the Rajah to the Rani's aunt.

"I can talk," said Cinnamon. "I think I always could."

"Then why didn't you?" asked her mother.

"She's not talking now," muttered the Rani's aunt, wagging one stick-like finger. "That tiger is throwing his voice."

"Can no-one get that woman to stop talking?" asked the Rajah of the room.

"Easier to stop 'em than start 'em," said the tiger, and he dealt with the matter.

And Cinnamon said, "Why not? Because I had nothing to say."

"And now?" asked her father.

"And now the tiger has told me of the jungle, of the chattering of the monkeys and the smell of the dawn and the taste of the moonlight and the noise a lakeful of flamingoes makes when it takes to the air," she said. "And what I have to say is this: I am going with the tiger."

"You cannot do this thing," said the Rajah. "I forbid it."

"It is difficult," said Cinnamon, "to forbid a tiger anything it wants."

And the Rajah and the Rani, after giving the matter a little consideration, agreed that this was so.

"And besides," said the Rani, "she'll certainly be happier there."

"But what about the room in the palace? And the mango grove? And the parrot? And the picture of the Rani's late aunt?" asked the Rajah, who felt that there was a place for practicality in the world.

"Give them to the people," said the tiger.

And so an announcement was made to the people of the city that they were now the proud owners of a parrot, a portrait, and a mango grove, and that the Princess Cinnamon could speak, but would be leaving them for a while to further her education.

A crowd gathered in the town square, and soon the door of the palace opened, and the tiger and the child came out. The tiger walked slowly through the crowd with the little girl on his back, holding tightly to his fur, and soon they both were swallowed by the jungle; which is how a tiger leaves.

So, in the end, nobody was eaten, save only the Rani's elderly aunt, who was gradually replaced in the popular mind by the portrait of her, which hung in the town square, and was thus forever beautiful and young.

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