‘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.
