After the Prince had respectfully saluted his father and embraced his brothers, he took out of a box covered with rubies, the walnut, which he cracked, expecting to find in it the boasted piece of cloth; but in lieu of it there was a hazel nut. He cracked that also, and was surprised to see in it a cherry-stone. Everybody looked at one another, and the King laughed in his sleeve, and jeered at the notion of his son being credulous enough to believe he could bring a whole piece of cloth in a walnut; but why should he not have believed it, when he had already given him a little dog that had come out of an acorn? He therefore cracked the cherry-stone, which was filled with its kernel. A great murmur then arose in the apartment. Nothing was heard but the opinion that the young Prince had been duped in this adventure. He made no answer to the raillery of the courtiers: he opened the kernel and found in it a grain of wheat, and in the grain of wheat a millet seed. Ah! In truth, he began to doubt, and muttered between his teeth, "White Cat, White Cat, thou hast fooled me!" At that moment he felt a cat's claw upon his hand, which gave him such a scratch that the blood came. He knew not whether this scratch was given to encourage or to dishearten him; nevertheless, he opened the millet seed, and great was the astonishment of the whole company when he drew out of it a piece of cloth four hundred ells in length, so wonderfully wrought, that all the birds, beasts, and fishes were seen in their natural colours, with the trees, fruits, and plants of the earth; the rocks, curiosities, and shells of the ocean; the sun, the moon, the great and lesser stars and planets of the sky. There were also the portraits of all the kings and other sovereigns at that time reigning in the world, with those of their wives, of their mistresses, of their children, and of all their subjects, not forgetting the tiniest little urchin;—every one, in his particular class of life, accurately represented, and dressed in the habit of his country.
When the King saw this piece of cloth, he became as pale as the Prince had become red with confusion at having been so long finding it. The needle was produced, and the Prince passed and repassed the cloth through the eye of it six times. The King and the two eldest Princes looked on in sullen silence, except when the beauty and curiosity of the cloth
