Then Jack dropped a low courtesy, and said, "Thank you, my lady; I have one of the three parts of you won."
Then he drew up his animals in a circle, and began to whistle, and the minute he did, the Bee began to play the Harp, and the Mouse and the Bum-clock stood up on their hind legs, got hold of each other, and began to dance, and the king and the king's court and Jack himself began to dance and jig, and everything about the king's castle, pots and pans, wheels and reels, and the castle itself began to dance also. And the king's daughter, when she saw this, opened her mouth again, and let out of her a laugh twice louder than she let before, and Jack, in the middle of his jigging, drops another courtesy, and says, "Thank you, my lady; that is two of the three parts of you won."
The Mouse and the Bum-clock stood up.
Jack and his menagerie went on playing and dancing, but Jack could not get the third laugh out of the king's daughter, and the poor fellow saw his big head in danger of going on the spike. Then the brave Mouse came to Jack's help and wheeled round upon its heel, and at it did so its tail swiped into the Bum-clock's mouth, and the Bum-clock began to cough and cough and cough. And when the king's daughter saw this she opened her mouth again, and she let the loudest and hardest and merriest laugh that was ever heard before or since; and, "Thank you, my lady," says Jack, dropping another courtesy; "I have all of you won."
Then when Jack stopped his menagerie, the king took himself and the menagerie within the castle. He was washed and combed, and dressed in a suit of silk and satin, with all kinds of gold and silver ornaments, and then was led before the king's daughter. And true enough she confessed that a handsomer and finer fellow than Jack she had never seen, and she was very willing to be his wife.
Jack sent for his poor old mother and brought her to the wedding, which lasted nine days and nine nights, every night better than the other. All the lords and ladies and gentry of Ireland were at the wedding. I was at it, too, and got brogues, broth and slippers of bread and came jigging home on my head.