The giant did not reply, but after a short pause he began: "Once there was a sausage. It was the most beautiful sausage I ever saw. Everybody loved it. It belonged to a prince who was very, very rich. He had so many sausages that he was never able to count them, and he had to go long past twelve times in the multiplication table even then.
"This sausage was large, round, and covered all over with gold paper to keep it from catching cold. It was rather delicate when it was young, but as it grew up——"
"Sausages don't grow up!" exclaimed George in surprise.
"Don't interrupt me," answered the giant. "As it grew up it became stronger and more beautiful every day. The prince was never tired of looking at it and admiring it.
"One day he thought it was time for him to get married, and so he wrote a letter to a lovely princess who lived not far away, and asked her if she would accept his hand and his sausages.
"The princess, however, was not very fond of sausages. She had once been ill after eating them, and had never cared for them since. So she wrote back and said that she was very sorry but she could not accept his kind invitation.
"The prince became very sorrowful when he received her letter, for she was a beautiful princess—almost as beautiful as his sausage. So he made up his mind to go and see where he could find a wife who would like both him and his sausages.
"He mounted his horse and rode away," continued the giant in a slow, sleepy voice, and George closed his eyes for just one minute, he felt so drowsy....
