“My bushel measure!” the King repeated in surprise. “Who is your master and why does he want my bushel measure?”
“Ssh!” the Fox whispered as though he didn’t want the courtiers to hear what he was saying. Then slipping up quite close to the King he murmured in his ear:
“Surely you have heard of Mikko, haven’t you?—Mighty Mikko as he’s called.”
The King had never heard of any Mikko who was known as Mighty Mikko but, thinking that perhaps he should have heard of him, he shook his head and murmured:
“H’m! Mikko! Mighty Mikko! Oh, to be sure! Yes, yes, of course!”
“My master is about to start off on a journey and he needs a bushel measure for a very particular reason.”
“I understand! I understand!” the King said, although he didn’t understand at all, and he gave orders that the bushel measure which they used in the storeroom of the castle be brought in and given to the Fox.
The Fox carried off the measure and hid it in the woods. Then he scurried about to all sorts of little out of the way nooks and crannies where people had hidden their savings and he dug up a gold piece here and a silver piece there until he had a handful. Then he went back to the woods and stuck the various coins in the cracks of the measure. The next day he returned to the King.
“My master, Mighty Mikko,” he said, “sends you thanks, O King, for the use of your bushel measure.”
The King held out his hand and when the Fox gave him the measure he peeped inside to see if by chance it contained any trace of what had recently been measured. His eye of course at once caught the glint of the gold and silver coins lodged in the cracks.