The Egg-Shell.
A boy once met a magician, who gave him an egg-shell, telling him to place it in his mouth, but on no account to break it. The boy was as foolish as boys usually are, so he instantly obeyed him, without at all stopping to think what the consequences might be. Immediately his head swelled up like an enormous balloon, so that the wind nearly blew him away. He managed to catch hold of a post and save himself from this fate, and a crowd began to gather around his head. His body was quite out of sight underneath, and only the huge head was to be seen.
As everybody stood staring at the wonderful sight, a fly lit on the boy's cheek. He could not reach it himself, for his arms would not reach a tenth part of the way to his chin; so he asked one of the bystanders to kill the troublesome insect. The boy's voice was so smothered by the egg-shell that it was long before he could make himself understood; but at last the man got an idea of what was wanted, and aimed a severe blow at the fly. The insect flew away unharmed, but the boy started so suddenly that he bit the egg-shell in two, and his head collapsed to its natural size. So there was a little boy in the middle of the place, holding on by a post, and a crowd of people looking at him from a distance.
"What a disappointment!" said the boy's mother. "He was fast becoming remarkable! But then, what a sum his hats would have cost! After all, it is best as it is."
"And besides," added a neighbor, "how could you have got at him to punish him?"
"To be sure!" answered the mother.
"This is better than the first, because it is shorter," said the king; and the man with a crooked nose began the story of