"Hullo! here I am!" shouted Silly Hans; "I am really in luck's way. Heigh-ho! This is really wonderful!"
"What have you found now?" asked the brothers.
"Oh," said Silly Hans, "it is hardly worth mentioning, but how pleased the king's daughter will be!"
"Ugh!" said the brothers; "why; that's mud just thrown up from the ditch."
"Yes, that's what it is," said Silly Hans; "and it is of the finest sort—so fine that you can't hold it between your fingers;" and so he filled his pocket with it.
But the brothers rode on as fast as their horses' legs could carry them, and thus they arrived at the city gate an hour earlier than Hans. Here the suitors received numbers in the order in which they arrived, and were then placed in rows of six each, and placed so closely that they could not even move their arms, which was a very good thing, for otherwise they would have cut each other's backs to pieces, for the one was standing in front of the other.
All the other inhabitants of the country stood round about the palace, right up to the windows, to see che king's daughter receive the suitors. As they entered the room, one by one, the power of speech seemed to desert them.
"No good," said the king's daughter. "Away with you!"
Now came the turn of the brother who knew the dictionary by heart, but he had forgotten it all while standing in the row; the floor creaked at each step he took, and the ceiling was of looking-glass, so that he could see himself standing on his head, and at every window there were three clerks and an alderman, who wrote down everything that was said, so that it could get into the papers at once, and be sold for a penny at the street corner. It was really terrible, and, moreover, they had put so much fire in the stove that the drum was red-hot.
"It's dreadfully hot in here," said the suitor.
"Yes, that's because my father is roasting chickens to-day," said the king's daughter.
Bah! there he stood; he had not expected to be spoken to in that way; he did not know what to say, although he wanted to say something clever. Bah!
"No good," said the king's daughter. "Go away;" and so he had to go.
Next came his brother.
"There's a dreadful heat in here," he said.
"Yes, we are roasting chickens to-day," said the king's daughter.
"Beg your par—" he said; and all the clerks wrote down "Beg your par—."
"No good," said the king's daughter. "Go away."
Then came Silly Hans, riding his billy-goat right into the room. "What a sweltering heat!" he said.
