Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/62

54 you would never be able to swallow; and if you would just let me go home and look about me a bit, I feel sure I could bring you something of the sort,—and then I hope your honour would not forget what you said just now.”

“Very well,” said the ogre, after reflecting a little, “I don’t mind letting you have a trial—indeed as I don’t happen to want you just now, it will suit me very well. I will give you leave to try four times; but mind, you must give me your word of honour to come back here every day at noon; and unless you bring me something that I can’t swallow, I shall swallow you yourself on the fourth day;—that’s all.”

Now, you must understand that the ogre did not say this out of any mercy for the prince; but the fact is, he liked best the things that it would make everybody else sick even to look at; and he thought this would be a good opportunity for getting a choice supply of all the dainties that he was so fond of, without any trouble; for he wanted some variety, and was tired of picking up dead dogs, and robbing the pigstyes.

The prince gave his word to come back very gladly, for he thought he should have no difficulty in bringing the ogre something that even he would find too horrible to swallow; and so the giant let him go, and showed him a backway out of the cavern, which, to his great surprise, opened on the cliffs just above his father’s palace, to which he returned before he had been missed.

You may think that the ogre was rather simple for supposing that the prince would come back again to be eaten up after he had once got away; but he knew that no prince ever broke his word, you know, seventeen thousand years ago.

No sooner had he got home than Prince Hassan set about making a pudding, which he hoped the ogre would find too much for his stomach. He took fifty adders, fifty rats, a dozen old shoes, a hundred python’s eggs (addled), and two scuttlefuls of rubbish out of the dusthole; over these he poured six bottles of blacking, tied it all up in a beggar’s old shirt, and for water to boil it in, desired the Grand Mistress of the Slop- pails to bring him the dirty soap-suds from all the basins in the palace. With this precious mess he knocked at the ogre’s back-door exactly at twelve o’clock the next day.

“Well, my young gentleman, let us see what you have got here,” said the monster, taking up the pudding; “it smells rather nice.” And, to the dismay of the poor prince, instead of flinging it away in disgust, he popped it into his mouth and munched it up like a penny tart.

“Ho, ho,” he said, “not bad—not bad! Do you call that nasty? You must bring me something very different, if you expect me not to swallow it. Ho! come again to-morrow.”

And then he took out an old pitchfork which he used as a toothpick, and went back to his den.

The next day the prince thought he would be very cunning, and bring the giant a meal that he did not expect. Since he seems so fond of nasty things, he said to himself, I will try if I can’t puzzle him by a dish of something very nice.

So he went round to all the pastrycooks in the town, and bought up all the twelfthcakes, the gingerbread, apricot-jam, and barley-sugar in their shops; and again, at twelve o’clock exactly, he knocked at Uglymuggimo’s door.

When the ogre saw what was brought him, he fell into a furious passion.

“How dare you bring me such disgusting rubbish?” he roared out. “Is this proper food to set before a gentleman ogre? Take it away this instant; but—no! Stop! You shan’t escape me that way. I will eat it; but if you dare to play me such a trick again, I will skin you alive and stick you in my mustard pot. I will make you envy the very frogs and flies that you used to catch when you were at school! I will!” Then, holding his nose and shutting his eyes, he thrust all the dainties between his enormous jaws, and swallowed them down with a great gulp. “Ho, ho,” he said, you see that won’t do either, my young friend. Come again to-morrow; and, remember, no more nonsense!”

This was a sad disappointment to Prince Hassan; and his only consolation was, that the expression of the giant’s face raised some hopes that he was suffering from stomach-ache.

But, as he was returning home, he happened to pass the chemist’s shop to which, in the days of his boyhood, his mamma used to send for black doses; for she made a rule of administering one to him the first Monday in every month, according to the ancient customs of the Court of Cashmere. The sight gave him new hopes. “I am saved!” he joyfully exclaimed; and immediately sent a herald round the town with a proclamation that all the rhubarb, all the jalap, all the castor oil, and all the senna-tea that could be found should be mixed together in a tub and brought to the palace. His orders were obeyed; and, on that happy night, no physic was taken in the whole city.

The next day at twelve o’clock exactly, the prince again went to the ogre’s back door, taking his tub with him; but this time he was full of confidence.

“I have beat him this time, for certain,” he said to himself; “if he were ten times an ogre he would never be able to swallow such a draught.”

But, bless you! no sooner had the monster seen the horrid mixture than he tossed it off like a glass of lemonade, smacking his lips after it.

When the prince saw this, he began to despair; for he felt that his last chance was gone.

“Ho, ho,” said the giant, with a dreadful grin, “don’t be cast down. You have one more chance, you know; try again. Why don’t you bring me such a thing as a tough old woman, now? Perhaps I shouldn’t be able to swallow that: ho, ho!” And then he laughed in such a violent and vulgar way that he shook down six large trees.

“No, no,” said the prince; “I see it would be no use; you had better take me at once and have done with it; I give up; you can swallow anything if you could swallow what I brought you just now. Besides, where should I find an old woman who would consent to take my place?”

“As for that,” said the ogre, with an odious wink, “I should have thought a stout young man like you could have managed to persuade an old woman to come this way without much trouble.