“All right,” answered the tailor, “if only it suits you to go into a big town where there is no lack of work.”
“That is just where I want to go,” answered the shoemaker. “In a small nest there is nothing to earn; and in the country, people like to go barefoot.”
They traveled therefore onward together, and always set one foot before the other like a weazel in the snow.
Both of them had time enough, but little to bite and to break. When they reached a town, they went about and paid their respects to the tradesmen.
Because the tailor looked so lively and merry, and had such pretty red cheeks, every one gave him work willingly. And when luck was good, the master’s daughters gave him a kiss beneath the porch, as well. When he again fell in with the shoemaker, the tailor had always the most in his bundle.
The ill-tempered shoemaker made a wry face, and thought, “The greater the rascal the more the luck.”
But the tailor began to laugh and to sing, and shared all he got with his comrade. If a couple of pence jingled in his pockets, he ordered good cheer, and thumped the table in his joy till the glasses danced, and it was lightly come, lightly go, with him.
When they had traveled for some time, they came to a great forest through which passed the road to the capital. Two foot-paths, however, led through it, one of them a seven days’ journey, and the other only two. But neither of the travelers knew which way was the short one.
They seated themselves beneath an oak-tree, and took counsel together as to what they should do and for how many days they should provide themselves with bread.
The shoemaker said, “One must look before one leaps. I will take with me bread for a week.”