“It shall be done,” said the captain of the guards.
All the troops were up in arms, and the town was full of tumult and confusion. About midnight they brought the false king before King Beppo and the queen. The false king stood there trembling like a leaf. The queen stood gazing at him steadily. “Behold, this is the husband that thou gavest me,” said she. “It is as I said; he is greater than thou. For, lo, he is king! What art thou?”
The false king was banished out of the country, and the poor fisherman’s wife, who had entertained the princess for all this time, came to live at the palace, where all was joy and happiness.
“Friend,” said St. George, “I like your story. Ne’th’less, tis like a strolling peddler, in that it carries a great deal of ills to begin with, to get rid of them all before it gets to the end of its journey. However, tis as you say—it ends with everybody merry and feasting, and so I like it. But now methinks our little friend yonder is big with a story of his own;” and he pointed, as he spoke, with the stem of his pipe to a little man whom I knew was the brave Tailor who had killed seven flies at a blow, for he still had around his waist the belt with the legend that he himself had worked upon it.
“Aye,” piped the Tailor in a keen, high voice, “tis true I have a story inside of me. Tis about another tailor who had a great, big, black, ugly demon to wait upon him and to sew his clothes for him.”
“And the name of that story, my friend,” said the Soldier who had cheated the Devil, “is what?”
“It hath no name,” piped the little Tailor, “but I will give it one, and it shall be—”