"Yes, then I passed my youth in a quiet family; the furniture was of wood; the floors were scoured; they had clean curtains every fortnight."
"How interestingly you tell it!" said the dusting-brush; "one can immediately tell that the narrator is a lady, such a thread of purity always runs through their relations."
"Yes, that one can feel!" said the water-bucket, and made a little skip of pleasure on the floor.
And the earthen jug continued her story, and the end of it was like the beginning.
All the talkers shook for pleasure; and the dusting-brush took green parsley leaves from the dust-heap, and crowned the jug; for he knew that it would vex the others; and thinks he to himself, "If I crown her to-day, she will crown me to-morrow!"
"Now we will dance," said the fire-tongs; and began dancing. Yes, indeed! and it is wonderful how he set one leg before the other; the old shoehorn, which hung on a hook, jumped up to see it. "Perhaps I, too, may get crowned," said the fire-tongs; and it was crowned.
"They are only the rabble!" thought the brimstone matches.
The tea-urn was then asked to sing; but it said it had got a cold, and it could not sing unless it was boiling; but it was nothing but an excuse, because it did not like to sing, unless it stood upon the table, in grand company.
In the window there sat an old pen, which the servant-girl was accustomed to write with: there was nothing remarkable about it; it was dipped deep into the ink-stand. "If the tea-urn will not sing," said the pen, "then she can let it alone! Outside there hangs a nightingale in a cage, which can sing, and which has not regularly learned any thing; but we will not talk scandal this evening!"