“They would not stop, at least, I mean that six of them would not. Of course Prince Charlie came away. He does not care for fights.”
“Ah, I’ll remember that,” said the Old Man, and that night, when the princes were in bed and asleep, the Old Man (who was no less a personage than the Old Man in the Moon, who had come to the earth for various reasons) went to the bedroom where lay the seven brothers, opened the golden ball of each (with the exception of Prince Charlie’s), then, holding each of the six in turn by the hair with his magic tweezers, he kept them suspended in the air until their size had become so small that they could easily be put in their golden balls, popped them in, closed the balls, and placed the six of them in his wallet.
All this had been done without a word being said to the farmer or his wife. The Old Man came back to the room, and sat down again by the fire, remarking that he would go to bed now, as the moon would be level with the earth at four o’clock, and he must be there punctually to step in and do his work. They had all risen to go to their rooms, when great thundering knocks resounded on the door, and a voice cried—
“Open in the King’s name!”
The farmer hastily unlocked the door, and there entered Prince Claude, the cousin of the seven princes. He was followed by several soldiers.
“Where is the King?” he demanded.
“In the palace, I suppose,” answered the farmer.
“The King is here,” said the Prince; “do you not know that the late King, the father of the seven princes, died yesterday, and I have come to take his eldest son back to the palace to be King in his father’s place?”
The farmer started to go to the room where the seven princes had slept, but he was stopped by the Old Man of the Moon.