3 Mr Wonka and the Indian Prince
‘Prince Pondicherry wrote a letter to Mr Willy Wonka,’ said Grandpa Joe, ‘and asked him
to come all the way out to India and build him a colossal¹ palace entirely² out of
chocolate.’
‘Did Mr Wonka do it, Grandpa?’
‘He did, indeed. And what a palace it was! It had one hundred rooms, and everything
was made of either dark or light chocolate! The bricks were chocolate, and the cement
holding them together was chocolate, and the windows were chocolate, and all the walls
and ceilings were made of chocolate, so were the carpets and the pictures and the
furniture and the beds; and when you turned on the taps in the bathroom, hot chocolate
came pouring out.
‘When it was all finished, Mr Wonka said to Prince Pondicherry, “I warn you, though,
it won’t last very long, so you’d better start eating it right away.”
‘ “Nonsense!” shouted the Prince. “I’m not going to eat my palace! I’m not even going
to nibble³ the staircase⁴ or lick⁵ the walls! I’m going to live in it!”
‘But Mr Wonka was right, of course, because soon after this, there came a very hot
day with a boiling sun, and the whole palace began to melt, and then it sank slowly to
the ground, and the crazy prince, who was dozing⁶ in the living room at the time, woke
up to find himself swimming around in a huge brown sticky lake of chocolate.’
Little Charlie sat very still on the edge of the bed, staring at his grandfather. Charlie’s
face was bright, and his eyes were stretched so wide you could see the whites all around.
‘Is all this really true?’ he asked. ‘Or are you pulling my leg?’
‘It’s true!’ cried all four of the old people at once. ‘Of course it’s true! Ask anyone you
like!’
‘And I’ll tell you something else that’s true,’ said Grandpa Joe, and now he leaned

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