As soon as he had reached home, he put the ring into a mortar and ground it up until it was as fine as flour in the mill.
“There!” said he to himself, “that is an end of the Clever Student at any rate.”
After that he went back to his books again and began to read them, and then he soon found how he had been tricked by the Clever Student.
The princess and the Clever Student were sitting together. “See, now,” said the Student, “the Master of Black Arts will be coming this way again in a little while. He will be wanting the necklace of carbuncles, and you will have to let him have it. But I have a trick for his trick yet, so that perhaps we will get the better of him in the end.”
So the Clever Student did as he had done before; he pricked his arm till it bled, and with the blood he wet a lock of his hair. Then by his arts he changed the lock of hair into just such a necklace of carbuncles as he himself had been. After that he changed himself into a pearl ear-drop, and the princess hung him in her ear, and there he dangled.
Sure enough; by and by came along the Master of Black Arts with another basket. And you may believe that they did not let him cool his toes by long standing outside the door. He opened his basket, and in it was a white drake.
“Only a white drake!” you say? Yes, yes; but just wait for a little!
The Master of Black Arts stood the drake on the table and said, “Spickety-lickety!”
“Quack! quack!” said the drake, and every time it said “quack” a gold piece dropped from its mouth.