Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/172

156 so that when the king sees it, he might give me his daughter to be my wife."

The boy wished it all to be so, and immediately a beautiful crystal bridge stood before them, and on the other side a splendid kingdom sprang up, with a palace of gold, and marble churches and walls.

When the king woke up on the following morning, and saw these wonderful things, he asked who it was that made them, and was told that Theodore was the maker.

"Well," said the king, "if he is such a clever man as all that, he can have my daughter for his wife, as a reward."

Theodore married the princess, and became king over the new kingdom, and took the Lucky Child to live with him in the palace. But Theodore was not kind to the boy, he beat him and gave him very little to eat, making him do all kinds of hard work for him, and ordering him to obey his wishes, so that the boy's life at the palace was by no means pleasant. Still he bore everything very patiently, as he liked Theodore, and was very fond of the princess.

One evening Theodore and his wife were talking to each other, while the boy sat unnoticed in a corner weeping. Suddenly the princess turned to her husband, and asked,—

"How was it that you became so rich? I hear that you were once only a poor clerk, in the good merchant's office."

"Well, my riches and my supposed cleverness are