“What is the service you want to be performed?” said Hop-o’-my-thumb.
“Come nearer, and I will tell thee.”
“No, not an inch,” cried the little fellow stoutly. “You are near enough, my friend. Tell me what I am to do. I can hear you.”
“Oh, very well,” responded Slubber sullenly. “Know, then, that I have a wife.”
“I wish I had one,” interrupted Hop-o’-my-thumb.
“Thou shalt have mine with pleasure,” retorted the giant quickly. [[331]]
The little squatter laughed. “Nay,” he said, “it is against the law to take anything belonging to another. Well, you were saying you have a wife.”
“True, I have a wife and, I may add, one of the most inquisitive of her sex,” added the giant in quite a humble tone, which contrasted strangely with his previous bombast. “Know, then, O mite, King Stork propounded three riddles to my wife, each one full of mystery, and my life is plagued out of me day and night by her to find an answer to these problems. Now, if thou canst find the secret of these things the land is thine for all time.”
“What are the riddles?” inquired Hop-o’-my-thumb.
The giant reflected a moment and then replied,—