“A hundred!”
“No.” Boots had no wish to sell, but as it was the Princess, and as she seemed so set and determined on having it, he would tell her what he would do; he would sell the pipe for a hundred dollars if she would give him a kiss for every dollar she paid.
The Princess did not know what to say to that. It was not becoming that a Princess should kiss a herdsman; still she wanted the pipe and as that was the only way to get it she at last agreed. She paid the lad a hundred bright silver dollars, and she also gave him a hundred kisses out there on the hillside, with no one to look on but the hares.
Then she took the pipe and hastened home with it.
But small good the pipe did her. Just as she reached the palace steps the pipe slipped out of her fingers as though it had been buttered, and look as she might she could not find it again.
That was because the lad had wished it back to himself. At that very moment he was on his way home with the pipe in his pocket and the hares hopping before him in lines like soldiers.
When the King heard the story he thought and pondered. The Princess had told him nothing of the kisses. He thought she had bought the pipe for a hundred dollars, so the next day he sent the Queen out to the hillside with two hundred dollars in her pocket.
“The Princess is young and foolish,” said he. “She must have lost the pipe on the hillside, and no doubt the lad has it back by this time. Do you go out and see if you can buy it from him and if you once have your fingers on it you’ll not lose it, I’ll wager.”
So the Queen went out to the hillside and hid herself in the bushes, and she saw Boots blow the hares away and lie down to sleep and afterward blow them together again in a twinkling.
Then she came out from the bushes and offered to buy the pipe. At first the lad said no, and again no, and then no for the third time, but in the end he sold the pipe to the Queen for two hundred dollars and fifty kisses to go with them, and the Queen hoped the King would never hear of it. She took the pipe and hastened home with it, but she fared no better than the Princess, for just before she reached the palace the pipe disappeared from her fingers, and what had become of it she did not know.