d bring the fellow hither.'

So the attendant went into the ballroom and did as the king had bidden
him, when, to his surprise, not one man, but twenty, stepped forward,
all with black dots on their faces.

'I am the person you want,' they all exclaimed at once, and the
attendant, as much bewildered as the chamberlain had been, desired them
to follow him into the king's presence.

But the question was too difficult for the king to decide, so he called
together his council. For hours they talked, but to no purpose, and in
the end they hit upon a plan which they might just as well have thought
of at the beginning.

And this was the plan. A child was to be brought to the palace, and next
the king's daughter would give her an apple. Then the child was to take
the apple and be led into a room where the twenty men with the black
dots were sitting in a ring. And to whomsoever the child gave the apple,
that man should marry the king's daughter.

'Of course,' said the king, 'it may not be the right man, after all, but
then again it _may_ be. Anyhow, it is the best we can do.'

The princess herself led the child into the room where the twenty men
were now seated. She stood in the centre of the ring for a moment,
looking at one man after another, and then held out the apple to the
Shifty Lad, who was twisting a shaving of wood round his finger, and had
the mouthpiece of a bagpipe hanging from his neck.

'You ought not to have anything which the others have not got,' said the
chamberlain, who had accompanied the princess; and he bade the child
stand outside for a minute, while he took away the shaving and the
mouthpiece, and made the Shifty Lad change his place. Then he called the
child in, but the little girl knew him again, and went straight up to
him with the apple.

[Illustration: HOW THE SHIFTY LAD WAS HUNG ON DUBLIN BRIDGE]

'This is the man whom the child has twice chosen,' said the chamberlain,
signing to the Shifty Lad to kneel before the king. 'It was all quite
fair; we tried it twice over.' In this way the Shifty Lad won the king's
daughter, and they were married the next day.

* * * * *

A few days later the bride and bridegroom were taking a walk together,
and the path led down to the river, and over the river was a bridge.

'And what bridge may this be?' asked the Shifty Lad; and the princess
told him that this was the bridge of Dublin.

'Is it indeed?' cried he. 'Well, no