instrument costs; but I won't kiss him again.'

'He wants a hundred kisses from the Princess,' said the
lady-in-waiting who had gone down to ask him.

'I believe he is mad!' said the Princess, and then she went on; but
she had only gone a few steps when she stopped.

'One ought to encourage art,' she said. 'I am the Emperor's daughter!
Tell him he shall have, as before, ten kisses; the rest he can take
from my ladies-in-waiting.'

'But we don't at all like being kissed by him,' said the
ladies-in-waiting.

'That's nonsense,' said the Princess; 'and if I can kiss him, you can
too. Besides, remember that I give you board and lodging.'

So the ladies-in-waiting had to go down to him again.

'A hundred kisses from the Princess,' said he, 'or each keeps his
own.'

'Put yourselves in front of us,' she said then; and so all the
ladies-in-waiting put themselves in front, and he began to kiss the
Princess.

'What can that commotion be by the pigsties?' asked the Emperor, who
was standing on the balcony. He rubbed his eyes and put on his
spectacles. 'Why those are the ladies-in-waiting playing their games;
I must go down to them.'

So he took off his shoes, which were shoes though he had trodden them
down into slippers. What a hurry he was in, to be sure!

As soon as he came into the yard he walked very softly, and the
ladies-in-waiting were so busy counting the kisses and seeing fair
play that they never noticed the Emperor. He stood on tip-toe.

'What is that?' he said, when he saw the kissing; and then he threw
one of his slippers at their heads just as the Swineherd was taking
his eighty-sixth kiss.

'Be off with you!' said the Emperor, for he was very angry. And the
Princess and the Swineherd were driven out of the empire.

Then she stood still and wept; the Swineherd was scolding, and the
rain was streaming down.

'Alas, what an unhappy creature I am!' sobbed the Princess. 'If only I
had taken the beautiful Prince! Alas, how unfortunate I am!'

And the Swineherd went behind a tree, washed the black and brown off
his face, threw away his old clothes, and then stepped forward in his
splendid dress, looking so beautiful that the Princess was obliged to
courtesy.

'I now come to this. I despise you!' he said. 'You would have nothing
to do with a noble Prince; you did not understand the rose or the
nightingale, but you could kiss the Swineherd for the sake of a toy.
This is what you get for it!' And he wen