"Am I not?" the flower responded, sweetly. "And I was born at the same moment as the sun . . ."

The little prince could guess easily enough that she was not any too modest -- but how moving -- and exciting -- she was!

"I think it is time for breakfast," she added an instant later. "If you would have the kindness to think of my needs --"

And the little prince, completely abashed, went to look for a sprinkling-can of fresh water. So, he tended the flower.

So, too, she began very quickly to torment him with her vanity -- which was, if the truth be known, a little difficult to deal with. One day, for instance, when she was speaking of her four thorns, she said to the little prince:

"Let the tigers come with their claws!"

"There are no tigers on my planet," the little prince objected. "And, anyway, tigers do not eat weeds."

"I am not a weed," the flower replied sweetly.

"Please excuse me . . ."

"I am not at all afraid of tigers," she went on, "but I have a horror of draughts. I suppose you wouldn't have a screen for me?"

"A horror of drafts -- that is bad luck, for a plant," remarked the little prince, and added to himself, "This flower is a very complex creature . . ."

"At night I want you to put me under a glass globe. It is very cold where you live. In the place I came from --"

But she interrupted herself at that point. She had come in the form of a seed. She could not have known anything of any other worlds. Embarrassed over having let herself be caught on the verge of such a naïve untruth, she coughed two or three times, in order to put the little prince in the wrong.

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