“Oh!” said a voice beside him, “it is only Trouble.”
“And what are you doing there, Trouble?” said the soldier.
Oh! Trouble was only jogging along with him. They had been friends and comrades for this many a bright day, for when had the soldier ever gone anywhere that Trouble had not gone along with him?
The brave soldier scratched his head. “Yes, yes,” says he; “that is all very fine; but there must be an end of the business. See! yonder is one road and here is another; you may go that road and I will go this, for I want no Trouble for a comrade.”
“Oh, no!” says Trouble, “I will never leave you now; you and I have been comrades too long for that!”
Very well! the soldier would see about that. They should go to the king, for things had come to a pretty pass if one could not choose one’s own comrades in this broad world, but must, willy-nilly, have Trouble always jogging at one’s heels.
So off they went—the soldier and Trouble—and by and by they came to the great town and there they found the king.
“Well, and what is the trouble now?” said the king.
Trouble indeed! Why, it was thus and so, here was that same Trouble tramping around at the soldier’s heels and would go wherever he went. Now, the soldier would like to know whether one had no right to choose one’s own comrades—that was the business that had brought him to the king!
