Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/46

24 came to the scullion too, who brought in wood and water for the cook. Then he held out his penny.

"Well, what shall I buy with this?" asked the merchant; "there won't be much time lost over this bargain."

"Buy what I can get for it. It is honest, that I know," said the lad.

That his master gave his word to do, and so he sailed away.

So when the merchant had unladed his ship and laded her again in foreign lands, and bought what he had promised his servants to buy, he came down to his ship, and was just going to shove off from the wharf. Then all at once it came into his head that the scullion had sent out a silver penny with him, that he might buy something for him.

"Must I go all the way back to the town for the sake of a silver penny? One would then have small gain in taking such a beggar into one's house," thought the merchant.

Just then an old wife came walking by with a bag at her back.

"What have you got in your bag, mother?" asked the merchant.

"Oh! nothing else than a cat. I can't afford to feed it any longer, so I thought I would throw it into the sea, and make away with it," answered the woman.

Then the merchant said to himself, "Didn't the lad say I was to buy what I could get for his penny?" So he asked the old wife if she would take four farthings for her cat. Yes! the goody was not slow to say "done," and so the bargain was soon struck.