Then there was a hue and cry! All the surgeons and physicians in the kingdom were sent for, but could do no good. They were all in despair, when our youth came up disguised as a foreign doctor.
‘Noses! I can heal noses! whoever has got too much nose let him come to me!’
All the inhabitants gathered round him, and the queen called to him loudest of all.
‘The medicine I have to give is necessarily a very strong one to effect so extraordinary a cure; therefore I won’t give it to the queen’s majesty till she has seen it used on all her servants, beginning with the lowest.’
Taking them all in order, beginning with the lowest, he gave a few drops of cherry-juice to each, and all their noses came right.
Last of all the queen remained.
‘The queen can’t be treated like common people,’ he said; ‘she must be treated by herself. I must go into her room with her, and I can cure her with one drop of my cordial.’
‘You think yourself very clever that you talk of curing with one drop of your cordial, but you’re not the only person who can work wonders. I’ve got greater wonders than yours. I’ve got a hat which makes you invisible, a purse that never is empty, and a horn that gives you everything you call for.’
‘Very pretty things to talk about,’ answered the pretended doctor, ‘but such things don’t exist.’
‘Don’t they!’ said the queen. ‘There they are!’