t he could have drunken at least fifty flagons more, but that he
was not so thirsty as he had been.

When the messengers of the King reported that the wine was all drunken,
the King said: "Now are we put to it, for we cannot have this fellow wed
the Princess." So he sent his messengers to the ship bidding Simple come
to the palace and make ready for the wedding, and prepared a bath for
him. And when Simple entered the room for the bath he found that it was
heated so hot that the walls burned his hands when he touched them, and
the floors were like red-hot iron. But the man with the straw had come
in behind him, warned by the man with the wonderful hearing, and seeing
what was afoot, scattered his straw all about the bathroom, and at once
it became as cold as one could wish, and, the door having been locked,
Simple climbed up on the stove and went to sleep, and there they found
him in the morning, wrapped in a blanket.

When this was reported to the King he was very angry, and he said, "This
fellow is evidently very smart, but for all of that we cannot have him
wed the Princess. I will give him an impossible task. Go you to him,"
he said to the messenger, "and tell him that he must come to me at
to-morrow's sunrise with an army fitting the rank of one who would wed
the Princess."

When the man with the wonderful hearing reported this to Simple he was
in despair, and lamented and said: "Now at last am I beaten, though,
after all, I have a flying ship, even if I do not wed the Princess. It
will take me a year to raise an army, perhaps it would take all the rest
of my life."

But the man with the sticks said: "You forget that I am here. Now all of
these others have proven that they could help you to win the Princess,
let me at least do my share."

So at dawn they flew out over the parade ground, and the man with the
sticks threw them down upon the ground, and immediately there sprung up
soldiers, in platoons and regiments, with armor, and captains and
colonels and generals to command them. And the King and his courtiers
had never seen such an army, and the Princess, standing on the balcony
beside her father, as they rode by the palace, seeing Simple riding at
the head of the band, with the generals paying him homage, said: "This
man must be a very great prince indeed, and, now that I look at him he
is not so uncomely, after all."

And Simple, riding at the head of his army, looking up at the balcony
and seeing the Pr