nly to
say: "Show me what you can do, cock," and you will see some wonderful
things. But, remember, it is not necessary to let all the world into
the secret.'

'Oh no, Holy Man, I am not so foolish as that.'

'Nor to tell everybody that I gave it to you,' went on the Holy Man.
'I have not got these treasures by the dozen.'

And without waiting for an answer he shut the door.

As before, the distance seemed to have wonderfully shortened, and in a
moment the tavern rose up in front of Father Grumbler. Without
stopping to think, he went straight in, and found the innkeeper's wife
in the kitchen making a cake.

'Where have you come from, with that fine red cock in your basket,'
asked she, for the bird was so big that the lid would not shut down
properly.

'Oh, I come from a place where they don't keep these things by the
dozen,' he replied, sitting down in front of the table.

The woman said no more, but set before him a bottle of his favourite
wine, and soon he began to wish to display his prize.

'Show me what you can do, cock,' cried he. And the cock stood up and
flapped his wings three times, crowing 'coquerico' with a voice like a
trumpet, and at each crow there fell from his beak golden drops, and
diamonds as large as peas.

[Illustration: 'COQUERICO'--THE WONDERFUL COCK]

This time Father Grumbler did not invite the innkeeper's wife to pick
up his treasures, but put his own hat under the cock's beak, so as to
catch everything he let fall; and he did not see the husband and wife
exchanging glances with each other which said, 'That would be a
splendid cock to put with our basket.'

'Have another glass of wine?' suggested the innkeeper, when they had
finished admiring the beauty of the cock, for they pretended not to
have seen the gold or the diamonds. And Father Grumbler, nothing loth,
drank one glass after another, till his head fell forward on the
table, and once more he was sound asleep. Then the woman gently coaxed
the cock from the basket and carried it off to her own poultry yard,
from which she brought one exactly like it, and popped it in its
place.

Night was falling when the man awoke, and throwing proudly some grains
of gold on the table to pay for the wine he had drunk, he tucked the
cock comfortably into his basket and set out for home.

His wife and all the children were waiting for him at the door, and as
soon as she caught sight of him she broke out:

'You are a nice man to go wasti