‘Oh! it’s a case of hysterics is it!’ said the father; ‘then it is all quite right,’ and he and the rest went away; and the count and his wife got on very well after that, and he never had to make use of the doctor’s root again.
THE QUEEN AND THE TRIPE-SELLER.[1]
They say there was a queen who had such a bad temper that she made everybody about her miserable. Whatever her husband might do to please her, she was always discontented, and as for her maids she was always slapping their faces.
There was a fairy who saw all this, and she said to herself, ‘This must not be allowed to go on;’ so she went and called another fairy, and said, ‘What shall we do to teach this naughty queen to behave herself?’ and they could not imagine what to do with her; so they agreed to think it over, and meet again another day.
When they met again, the first fairy said to the other, ‘Well, have you found any plan for correcting this naughty queen?’
‘Yes,’ replied the second fairy; ‘I have found an excellent plan. I have been up and all over the whole town, and in a little dirty back lane[2] I have found a tripe-seller as like to this queen as two peas.’[3]
‘Excellent!’ exclaimed the first fairy. ‘I see what you mean to do. One of us will take some of the queen’s clothes and dress up the tripe-seller, and the other will take some of the tripe-seller’s clothes and dress up the queen in them, and then we will exchange them till the queen learns better manners.’
‘That’s the plan,’ replied the second fairy. ‘You have said it exactly. When shall we begin?’
‘This very night,’ said the first fairy.