Page:Fairy tales and other stories (Andersen, Craigie).djvu/208

 196 So one of the maids of honour had to go down; but first she put on a pair of pattens.

'What do you want for the pot?' inquired the lady.

'I want ten kisses from the Princess,' replied the swineherd.

'Heaven preserve us!' exclaimed the maid of honour.

'Well, I won't sell it for less,' said the swineherd.

'Well, what did he say?' asked the Princess.

'I really can't repeat it, it is so shocking,' replied the lady.

'Well, you can whisper it in my ear.' And the lady whispered it to her.—'He is very rude,' declared the Princess; and she went away. But when she had gone a little way, the bells sounded so prettily—

'Hark-ye,' said the Princess: 'ask him if he will take ten kisses from my maids of honour.'

'No, thanks,' replied the swineherd: 'ten kisses from the Princess, or I shall keep my pot.'

'How tiresome that is!' cried the Princess. 'But at least you must stand round me, so that nobody sees it.'

And the maids of honour stood round her, and spread out their dresses, and then the swineherd received ten kisses, and she received the pot.

Then there was rejoicing! All the evening and all the day long the pot was kept boiling; there was not a kitchen hearth in the whole town of which they did not know what it had cooked, at the shoemaker's as well as the chamberlain's. The ladies danced with pleasure, and clapped their hands.

'We know who will have sweet soup and pancakes for dinner, and who has hasty pudding and cutlets; how interesting that is!'

'Very interesting!' said the head lady-superintendent.

'Yes, but keep counsel, for I'm the Emperor's daughter.'

'Yes, certainly,' said all.

The swineherd, that is to say, the Prince—but of course they did not know but that he was a real swineherd—let no day pass by without doing something, and so he made