"I did not travel," said the third mouse, "I stayed in this country;
that was the right way. One gains nothing by traveling. Everything can
be acquired here quite as easily, so I stayed at home. I have not
obtained what I know from supernatural beings; I have neither swallowed
it nor learned it from conversing with owls. I have gained it all from
my own reflections and thoughts. Will you now set the kettle on the
fire--so? Now pour the water in, quite full up to the brim; place it on
the fire; make up a good blaze; keep it burning, that the water may
boil, for it must boil over and over. There, now I throw in the skewer.
Will the mouse-king be pleased now to dip his tail into the boiling
water and stir it round with the tail? The longer the king stirs it the
stronger the soup will become. Nothing more is necessary, only to stir
it."
"Can no one else do this?" asked the king.
"No," said the mouse; "only in the tail of the mouse-king is this power
contained."
And the water boiled and bubbled, as the mouse-king stood close beside
the kettle. It seemed rather a dangerous performance, but he turned
round and put out his tail, as mice do in a dairy when they wish to skim
the cream from a pan of milk with their tails and afterwards lick it
off. But the mouse-king's tail had only just touched the hot steam when
he sprang away from the chimney in a great hurry, exclaiming:
"Oh, certainly, by all means, you must be my queen. We will let the soup
question rest till our golden wedding, fifty years hence, so that the
poor in my kingdom who are then to have plenty of food will have
something to look forward to for a long time, with great joy."
And very soon the wedding took place. Many of the mice, however, as they
were returning home, said that the soup could not be properly called
"soup from a sausage skewer," but "soup from a mouse's tail." They
acknowledged that some of the stories were very well told, but thought
that the whole might have been managed differently.
[Illustration]