house, he set his collection of tails and ears in
the sandy soil, as if they had been so many
plants.

"Where are the pigs?" was the first
question put to him by his master on his
reappearance.

"Well, to tell you the truth, they have
grown so fat that they are all sunk into the
ground."

To convince himself of this strange fact by
ocular proof, the master hastened to the place
where the ears and tails had been set, and
pulling out one, was disappointed to find that it
lacked continuation. He asked what had become
of his pigs.

"The things of this world pass away," said
the youth, raising his eyes with a sigh, " and
the pigs are reduced to dust."

"You shall pay for this, you scoundrel!"
cried the master, grinding his teeth.

"You surely don't repent of our contract?"
said the lad.

"Yes I do; and I wish from the
bottom of my soul I had never clapped eyes
on you—-"

He stopped short, suddenly perceiving the
mistake he had made; but it was too late,
for the youth caught him by the throat and
flayed him alive, so that he perished
miserably.

Having thus become master of the house by
right of conquest, he buried his brothers, sent
for his father, took unto himself a wife, and
lived happily for the rest of his days.

The man who having been married five years
and finding himself still childless, is much
afflicted on that account, does not open the
third tale with much promise of novelty,
though the fact that he was about to drown
himself shows that his grief was above the
average level. Of course his complaints attracted
a mysterious stranger, ready to hear the
particulars of his case and to strike a bargain.
After a little conversation, this stranger promised
that the mourner's wife should at once
present him with a son, if he, the mourner,
would undertake to consign the aforesaid son
to the stranger when he had attained the age
of a year and three days.

Not from treachery, but from shortness of
memory, the man, who on his return home had
found there a new-born child, neglected to take
him to his benefactor on the appointed day,
although the urchin was so big, that when he had
completed the twelvemonth he looked five years
old. So when he came with the bulky article
to the beach, he found his friend waiting and
looking rather cross.

"You might have been punctual," he
growled. " This is the hundred and fourth
day, and the child was due on the hundred and
third."

The man might have objected that a chronologist
who counted a hundred days to the year
had no right to insist on perfect accuracy with
respect to time, had the stranger remained a
minute longer. This, however, was not the
case. In the twinkling of an eye, stranger and
child both vanished.

The benevolent being who had been so
prompt to give and to take away, was a potent
magician; he resided in a palace in the middle
of a wood, where he duly educated his
hopeful charge.

Now it happened one day, when the boy had
completed his fifteenth year, that the conjuror
had a mind to go a hunting, but before he set off
he put into the boy's hands a bunch of keys,
giving him full permission to look over the whole
palace, with the exception of three rooms, to
the doors of which three specially indicated
keys belonged. The trespass of Bluebeard's
wife and of the over-curious man in the Arabian
Nights is, of course, committed. The youth,
when he finds himself alone, and has seen as
much of the palace as is open to his inspection,
longs to enter the three prohibited rooms,
and does not long in vain

In the first room he found a fountain, with
water of an emerald hue, which after he had
stared at it a short time, seemed to say
"Hush!" He then observed a marble statue,
which, as he was of such a curious turn, he
might, one would think, have noticed sooner, and
which said, in a melancholy tone:

"Miserable wretch! who are you, and what
brings you here?"

The lad explained that he had been
brought thither by his own curiosity, in
opposition to the injunctions of his father;
whereupon the statue proceeded, in the same dismal
tone:

"That man is not your father; he only
stole you. I ought to know all about it,
as my two brothers and myself are in precisely
the same case. Here is a purse for you,
which will give you as much money as you
want. Put it up, and take care that nobody
sees it."

In the second room there was a fountain of
silver water, and another marble statue, which
gave him a magic wand. A fountain of golden
water, and a marble statue who gave him three
small packets of wonderful seeds, were the
conspicuous objects in the third chamber, which he
was about to leave, when suddenly a drop of
water, splashed from the basin of the fountain,
fell upon his little finger, and covered it with a
coating of gold which no amount of rubbing
could remove. Lest this ornament should
reveal his trespass, he covered it with a piece of
rag; and on the magician's return stated that
he had cut his finger. But the magician, too
sharp to be deceived by such a paltry
expedient, pulled away the rag, and half smiling
through his anger, said:

"You deserve death, but I will not be too
hard upon you. Indeed, as you seem so fond
of the golden fountain, you shall pay it another
visit."

So, taking him into the third room, he dipped
his head into the water, thus turning his hair
into gold. Then, covering his head with a