thinking and thinking about the beautiful
princess. He could not eat a bite, and he could hardly wait for the
night to come. As soon as it had fallen, he breathed upon his piece of
glass and rubbed his thumb upon it, and there stood the Genie of Good
Luck.

"I'd like the princess here again," said he, "as she was last night,
with feasting and drinking, such as we had before."

"To hear is to obey," said the Genie.

And as it had been the night before, so it was now. The Genie brought
the princess, and she and Jacob Stuck feasted together until nearly
midnight. Then, again, the door opened, and the beautiful servant-lad
came with the tray and something upon it covered with a napkin. Jacob
Stuck unfolded the napkin, and this time it was a cup made of a single
ruby, and filled to the brim with gold money. And the wonder of the
cup was this: that no matter how much money you took out of it, it was
always full. "Take this," said Jacob Stuck, "to remind you of me." Then
the clock struck twelve, and instantly all was darkness, and the Genie
carried the princess home again.

But the princess had brought her piece of chalk with her, as the
prime-minister had advised; and in some way or other she contrived,
either in coming or going, to mark a cross upon the door of Jacob
Stuck's house.

But, clever as she was, the Genie of Good Luck was more clever still. He
saw what the princess did; and, as soon as he had carried her home, he
went all through the town and marked a cross upon every door, great and
small, little and big, just as the princess had done upon the door of
Jacob Stuck's house, only upon the prime-minister's door he put two
crosses. The next morning everybody was wondering what all the crosses
on the house-doors meant, and the king and the prime-minister were no
wiser than they had been before.

But the princess had brought the ruby cup with her, and she and the king
could not look at it and wonder at it enough.

"Pooh!" said the prime-minister; "I tell you it is nothing else in the
world but just a piece of good luck--that is all it is. As for the
rogue who is playing all these tricks, let the princess keep a pair of
scissors by her, and, if she is carried away again, let her contrive
to cut off a lock of his hair from over the young man's right ear. Then
to-morrow we will find out who has been trimmed."

Yes, the princess would do that; so, before evening was come, she tied a
pair of scissors to her belt.