The Lilac Fairy Book. Andrew Lang

because of that? Why, you know we should be turned out of the palace, and sent away to starve.’

      ‘Oh no, we shouldn’t. The king is too good-natured. Of course he didn’t mean a little thing like this! Besides, there is no need to lift the lid off altogether. Just raise one corner so that I may peep. We are quite alone: nobody will ever know.’

      The man hesitated: it did seem a ‘little thing,’ and if it was to make his wife contented and happy it was well worth the risk. So he took hold of the handle of the cover and raised it very slowly and carefully, while the woman stooped down to peep. Suddenly she startled back with a scream, for a small mouse had sprung from the inside of the tureen, and had nearly hit her in the eye. Round and round the room it ran, round and round they both ran after it, knocking down chairs and vases in their efforts to catch the mouse and put it back in the tureen. In the middle of all the noise the door opened, and the mouse ran out between the feet of the king. In one instant both the man and his wife were hiding under the table, and to all appearance the room was empty.

      ‘You may as well come out,’ said the king, ‘and hear what I have to say.’

      ‘I know what it is,’ answered the charcoal-burner, hanging his head. The mouse has escaped.’

      ‘A guard of soldiers will take you back to your hut,’ said the king. ‘Your wife has the key.’

      ‘Weren’t they silly?’ cried the grandchildren of the charcoal-burners when they heard the story. ‘How we wish that we had had the chance! WE should never have wanted to know what was in the soup-tureen!’

      From ‘Litterature Orale de l’Auvergne,’ par Paul Sebillot.