“What have you found now?” the brothers asked.
“Oh! something more for the princess,” he said. “How pleased she will be!”
“Why, that is pure mud, straight from the ditch!” the brothers exclaimed.
“Of course it is!” Blockhead Hans responded. “There never was any better mud. See how it runs through my fingers.”
So saying, he filled his coat pocket with it. The brothers did not enjoy these interruptions or his company, and they rode off with such speed that they were hidden in a cloud of dust raised by their horses’ hoofs. They reached the gate of the royal city a good hour before Blockhead Hans did.
XII—THE RIVAL SUITORS
Each suitor for the hand of the princess was numbered as he arrived and had to wait his turn. They waited as patiently as they could, standing in line closely guarded to prevent the jealous rivals from getting into a fight with one another.
A crowd of people had gathered in the throne room at the palace to look on while the princess received her suitors, and as each suitor came in all the fine phrases he had prepared passed out of his mind. Then the princess would say: “It doesn’t matter. Away with him!”
At last the brother who knew the dictionary by heart appeared, but he did not know it any longer. The floor creaked, and the ceiling was made of glass mirrors so that he saw himself standing on his head. At one of the windows were three reporters and an editor, and each of them was writing down what was said to publish it in the paper that was sold at the street corners for a penny. All this was fearful. You couldn’t blame him for feeling nervous.
“It is very hot in here, isn’t it?” was the only thing that the brother who knew the dictionary could think of to say.