instead, and we can be happy, and all you will have to do is to betake
yourself to the forest every tenth day, when I am expecting my master
the genius. He is very jealous, as you know, and will not suffer a man
to come near me."

"Princess," I replied, "I see it is only fear of the genius that makes
you act like this. For myself, I dread him so little that I mean to
break his talisman in pieces! Awful though you think him, he shall
feel the weight of my arm, and I herewith take a solemn vow to stamp
out the whole race."

The princess, who realized the consequences of such audacity, entreated
me not to touch the talisman. "If you do, it will be the ruin of both
of us," said she; "I know genii much better than you." But the wine I
had drunk had confused my brain; I gave one kick to the talisman, and
it fell into a thousand pieces.

Hardly had my foot touched the talisman when the air became as dark as
night, a fearful noise was heard, and the palace shook to its very
foundations. In an instant I was sobered, and understood what I had
done. "Princess!" I cried, "what is happening?"

"Alas!" she exclaimed, forgetting all her own terrors in anxiety for
me, "fly, or you are lost."

I followed her advice and dashed up the staircase, leaving my hatchet
behind me. But I was too late. The palace opened and the genius
appeared, who, turning angrily to the princess, asked indignantly,

"What is the matter, that you have sent for me like this?"

"A pain in my heart," she replied hastily, "obliged me to seek the aid
of this little bottle. Feeling faint, I slipped and fell against the
talisman, which broke. That is really all."

"You are an impudent liar!" cried the genius. "How did this hatchet
and those shoes get here?"

"I never saw them before," she answered, "and you came in such a hurry
that you may have picked them up on the road without knowing it." To
this the genius only replied by insults and blows. I could hear the
shrieks and groans of the princess, and having by this time taken off
my rich garments and put on those in which I had arrived the previous
day, I lifted the trap, found myself once more in the forest, and
returned to my friend the tailor, with a light load of wood and a heart
full of shame and sorrow.

The tailor, who had been uneasy at my long absence, was, delighted to
see me; but I kept silence about my adventure, and as soon as possible
retired to my room to lament in secret over