gave him the hare demanded with so much insistence.
The King tucked his hare into his bag, and rode away at the utmost speed of his donkey.
"Three times he kissed the tail of his donkey."
But he had hardly gone a quarter of a league when a shrill whistle sounded in the air, on hearing which the hare nibbled at the bag so vigorously as speedily to make a hole, out of which it leapt to the ground and fled.
"Well?" inquired the Princess, on seeing the King return to the palace.
"I hardly know what to tell you, my daughter," replied the King. "This young shepherd is an obstinate fellow, who refused to sell me one of his hares at any price. But don't distress yourself; he'll not get so easily through the two other tasks as he has done with this one."
It need hardly be said that the King made no allusion to the conditions under which he had for a moment had possession of one of his hares, nor that the Princess said nothing about the terms of her similar unsuccess.
"That is exactly my case," she remarked; "I could not induce him to part with one of his hares, neither for gold nor silver."
When evening came, the shepherd returned with his hares; he counted them before the King; there was not one more or one less. They were given back to the Minister of the Interior, who had them driven into the stable.
Then the King said:
"The first problem has been solved; the second now remains to be accomplished. Pay great attention, young man."
The shepherd listened with all his ears.
"Up yonder, in my granary," the King went on, "there are one hundred measures of grey peas and one hundred measures of lentils; lentils and peas are mixed together; if you succeed to-night, and without light, in separating them, you will have solved the second problem."
"I'll do my best," replied the young shepherd.
And the King called his Minister of the Interior, who conducted the young man up to the granary, locked him in, and handed the key to the King.
As it was already night, and as, for such a labour, there was no time to be lost, the shepherd put his whistle to his lips and blew a long, shrill note.
Instantly five thousand ants appeared, and set to work separating the lentils from the peas, and never stopped until the whole were divided into two heaps.
The next morning the King, to his great astonishment, beheld the work accomplished. He tried to raise objections, but was unable to find any ground whatever.
All he could now do was to trust to the third trial, which, after the shepherd's success in the other two trials, he found to be not very hopeful. However, as the third
