But the homely pot of marjoram quite went out of his head, and he returned homewards without having so much as thought of it.
He was nearly home when he was accosted on the way by a strange-looking man one evening, who asked him if he would not buy of him a pot of marjoram.
‘A pot of marjoram!’ The words brought back his youngest daughter’s request whom he would not have disappointed for all the world.
‘A pot of marjoram, say you? Yes, it’s just what I want. Give it here, and there’s something extra because it is just what I want;’ and throwing him money to three or four times the ordinary value of the article, he called to an attendant to stow the pot on to the pack-saddle of one of the mules.
But the stranger held back the pot and laughed in his face.
‘I had thought you were a trader,’ he said, ‘and knew enough of the rules of trade to let a man fix his own price on his own wares.’
The merchant laughed in his turn at what seemed to him an insolent comparison.
‘When a trader goes thousands of miles, through a thousand perils to bring home precious wares from afar which those at home scarcely know the use of, true, then, he alone can fix the price. But a pot of marjoram, every one knows the price of that.’
‘Perhaps not,’ replied the stranger, binding his cloak about him with the pot tightly held under his arm. ‘At all events it is clear you don’t;’ and he took a step forward as if he considered the negotiation at an end.
The merchant was vexed; he would not on any account miss taking back a pot of marjoram, and he knew he was now so near home that no other chance would there be of procuring one. Swallowing down his annoyance as well as he could, therefore, he led his horse nearer to the strange man and said,—