“WITH HORROR HE SEIZED THE STOCKING.”
THE King of Maccaroonia, who was just in the prime of life, and in fact had been there for some time past, arose one morning and sat himself down in his night attire upon a chair by the side of his bed. His Minister of State stood before him holding his stockings, one of which had a large hole in the heel. Although he carefully turned the stocking in such a way that the king should not perceive the hole, and although it was much more in the king’s line to have an eye for dainty boots than for well-mended stockings, the hole had not escaped his royal penetration. With horror he seized the stocking, put his fore-finger through the hole up to his knuckles, and then remarked with a sigh—
“What good is there in being a king, so long as I have no queen! What think you of the project of taking a wife?”
“That, your Majesty, is indeed a sublime idea,” replied the Minister; “an idea which I am confident I, your humble subject, should have made bold to conceive, had I not felt that your Majesty himself would deign to utter it this very day.”
“Very well then!” answered the king; “but do you think it will be an easy matter for me to find just the right kind of a wife?”
“Pooh!” said the Minister, “you’ll find a dozen!”
“Do not forget that I am very fastidious. To please me, a princess must be beautiful and clever. And then there is another point that I would lay special stress on. You know how fond I am of ginger-nuts. In my whole kingdom there is not a person who knows how to bake them—that is, to bake them as they should be baked, not too hard and not too soft, but just nice and crisp. She must partout know how to bake ginger-nuts.”
When the Minister heard this his heart fell. But he soon recovered, and replied: “A king like your Majesty will, without doubt, be able to find a princess who can bake ginger-nuts.”
“Well then, we will look about us!” said the king; and that same day he set out accompanied by his Minister on a journey to such of his neighbours as had princesses to dispose of. But it so happened that only three princesses were discovered whose beauty and cleverness were sufficient to satisfy the king, and none of the three could bake ginger-nuts.