“From this time forth you shall always come and shave me.
When the apprentice came home, his master asked him how he got on at
the emperor’s, and the youth answered—
“All well; and the emperor has told me that I am to shave him in
future.”
Then he showed the twelve ducats he had received; but as to the
emperor’s goat’s ears, of that he said nothing.
From this time forth the apprentice went regularly to Trojan to shave
him, and for each shaving he received twelve ducats; but he told no one
that the emperor had goat’s ears.
At last it began to worry and torment him that he dare tell no one his
secret; and he became sick and began to pine away. His master, who
could not fail to observe this, asked him what ailed him, and after
much pressing the apprentice confessed that he had something on his
heart which he dared not confide to anyone, and he added, “If I could
only tell it to somebody, I should feel better at once.”