"Eh?" he said.
"I said, 'Can I be of any use to you?'" the Queen replied.
And the tailor regarded her in a dazed way. Suddenly he said—
"Oh yes; marry me, marry me, only marry me!"
The Queen said, "Oh, nonsense," because she had just remembered the elixir.
But the tailor answered, "It isn't nonsense—it really isn't. It's true I'm married already; but I'll knock my wife on the head, and then I'll be free."
But before the Queen could answer anything at all there began a sudden growling sound that resolved itself into a succession of footsteps coming rapidly down wooden steps, and, in a moment, a door burst open just behind the tailor's back. There was an old woman with a great broom just behind it.
"Ah, would ye now! murder your wife, a respectable married woman, for the sake of a hussy that comes dropping down out of the chimney-tops. I'll teach you."
And with one sweep of her broom she knocked the poor little tailor off his board, and made a dash at the Queen.
But the Queen took to her heels and ran off.