‘I met a wolf,’ she told the bricklayer, ‘and I broke the bucket across his nose.’
The bricklayer asked her no more questions, but took down a broom and gave her such a beating that her pride was humbled a little.
Then he handed to her an old copper milk-can, and said:
‘If you don’t bring it back full, your bones shall suffer for it.’
XI
Titty went off rubbing her sides; but this time she did not dare to disobey, and in a very bad temper stooped down over the well. It was not at all easy to fill the milk-can, which was large and round. It would not go down into the well, and the gypsy had to try again and again.
At last her arms grew so tired that when she did manage to get the can properly under the water she had no strength to pull it up, and it rolled to the bottom.
On seeing the can disappear, she made such a miserable face that Zizi, who had been watching her all this time, burst into fits of laughter.
Titty turned round and perceived the mistake she had made; and she felt so angry that she made up her mind to be revenged at once.
‘What are you doing there, you lovely creature?’ she said to Zizi.