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 you it will be the worse for you. He certainly invited you to supper, but only with the intention of cutting off both your ears. You can hear him sharpening his knife now.’

The guest heard the knife being sharpened, and hurried off down the steps as fast as he could.

Grethel ran with great agility to her Master, shrieking, ‘A fine guest you have invited, indeed!’

‘Why, what’s the matter, Grethel? What do you mean?’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘he has taken the two fowls that I had just put upon the dish, and run off with them.’

‘That ’s a clever trick!’ said her Master, regretting his fine fowls. ‘If he had only left me one so that I had something to eat.’

He called out to him to stop, but the guest pretended not to hear. Then he ran after him, still holding the carving-knife, and cried, ‘Only one, only one! ’—meaning that the guest should leave him one fowl; but the guest only thought that he meant he was to give him one ear, and he ran as if he was pursued by fire, and so took both his ears safely home.