"'Come down at once, or I'll fetch you,' answered Cut-in-half. Gringalet thought his last day was come.
"'I must,' he said to himself, trembling in every limb, and remembering his dream, 'now you are in for it, little fly: the spider is going to eat you.'
"After having placed his turtle softly on the ground, he bade him good-bye, for he had become attached to the creature, and approached the trap-door. He placed his foot on the ladder to descend, when Cut-in-half, taking him by his poor little leg, as slender as a spindle, drew him so strongly, so harshly, that Gringalet tumbled down, and polished his face against the whole length of the ladder."
"What a pity that the Alderman had not been there—what a fine dance for Cut-in-half," said Blue Cap; "it is in such times as these that it is good to be strong."
"Yes, my son; but, unfortunately, the Alderman was not there! Cut-in-half took the child by the seat of his trousers, and carried him into his den, where he kept his big ape tied to the foot of his bed. On seeing the child, the beast began to leap and grind his teeth like a mad thing, and to spring the whole length of his chain, as if he wished to devour him."
"Poor Gringalet, how did he ever get out of this?"
"Why, if he had fallen into the clutches of the ape, he would have been strangled at once."
"Thunder! it makes me half dead," said Blue Cap: "as for me at this moment,
I could not harm a mouse—what do you say, mate?"
"Nor I either."
"Nor I."