"Please, please do not tell the king," said two voices in the shadow of the trees.
"Who are you?" asked the man.
"Oh, you must know us well," said a man coming out into the light. "My name is Sharp, and that man behind the tree is named Dire, but please do not tell the king. We will give you the pearl; here it is. You called our names, and we saw that you knew us. Oh, I wish I had not been a thief!"
The man gave the pearl to the king, and went home wishing that no one would ever talk to him again of his sense of smell.
In three days word came from the queen that he must come to her at once. She thought his power was only a trick, and to catch him she had put a cat into a bag and the bag into a box.
When the man came, she asked sharply, "What is in this box? Tell me the truth, or off will go your head."
A WONDERFUL SENSE OF SMELL
"What shall I do?" thought the man, "Dire death is upon me." He did not remember that he was before the queen, and he repeated half aloud an old saying, "The bagged cat soon dies."