However, when Bhagtu persisted, the cuckoo, wiping its one eye on its wing, replied—

'The ugly hen painted.
By jealousy tainted,
The pretty hen dyed.
Lamenting his bride,
The cock, bald and bare,
Sobs loud in despair;
The pîpal tree grieves
By shedding its leaves;
The buffalo mourns
By casting her horns;
The stream, weeping fast,
Grows briny at last;
The cuckoo with sighs
Blinds one of its eyes!'

'Bless my heart!' cried Bhagtu,'but that is simply the most heartrending tale I ever heard in my life! I must really mourn likewise!' Whereupon he wept, and wailed, and beat his breast, until he went completely out of his mind; and when the Queen's maidservant came to buy of him, he gave her pepper instead of turmeric, onion instead of garlic, and wheat instead of pulse.

'Dear me, friend Bhagtu!' quoth the maid-* servant, 'your wits are wool-gathering! What's the matter?'

'Don't! please don't!' cried Bhagtu; 'I wish you wouldn't ask me, for I am trying to forget all about it. It is too dreadful—too too terrible!'

At last, however, yielding to the maid's entreaties, he replied, with many sobs and tears—

'The ugly hen painted.
By jealousy tainted,
The pretty hen dyed.
Lamenting his bride,
The cock, bald and bare,
Sobs loud in despair;
The pîpal tree grieves
By shedding its leaves;
The buffalo mourns
By casting her horns;
The stream, weeping fast,
Grows briny at last;
The cuckoo with sighs
Blinds one of its eyes;
Bhagtu's grief so intense is,
He loses his senses!'

'How very sad!' exclaimed the maidservant. 'I don't wonder at your distress; but it is always so in this miserable world!—everything goes wrong!'

Whereupon she fell to railing at everybody and everything in the world, until the Queen said to her, 'What is the matter, my child? What distresses you?'

'Oh!' replied the maidservant, 'the old story! every one is miserable, and I most of all! Such dreadful news!—