Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/194

 186 to-day I do not know where there is a better tradesman than you. I do not know how I will get on without you;: but if you will stay with me for another seven years, I will give you this (mentioning the wages) for the past seven years and the seven to come."

"To-morrow morning," says Donald, "I'm your man."

He served the baker for the second seven years, and at the end of the seven years the same agreement was made between them as at the end of the first seven years, with this difference, however, that at the end of the seven years Donald was to receive double the wages he had got for the fourteen years he had already served. They agreed as usual, and honest Donald served the baker for twenty-one years. At the expiry of the twenty-one years, the baker says to Donald: "You are now at the end of three seven years, and if you will serve me for another period of seven years, I will give you as much pay for the seven as you have to get for the twenty-one that are past."

"No, I will not stay for one year more," says Donald; "I will go home and see my wife."

"Your wife?" says the baker; "have you a wife? You're a strange man; you have been here for twenty-one years,. and no one ever heard you say you had a wife. But now," says the baker, "which would you rather: your three wages or three advices."

"Oh," says Donald, "I cannot answer that question till I get the advice of a wiser man than myself; but I will tell you in the morning." Donald came down early in the morning as he had promised.

"What now?" asked the baker. "Which are you going to take—the three wages or the three advices?"

"The three advices," says Donald.

"Well, the first advice is," says the baker: "Keep the proper roundabout road; the second advice is: Do not stay in a house where there is a young, beautiful wife, with an old surly husband; and the third advice is: Think