The giant hesitated, very much disturbed at what he saw. Meanwhile, Thumbling, who began to be hungry, opened his stout leather bag, and took out his bread and cheese.
“What is that white stuff?” asked the Troll, who had never seen any cheese before.
“That is a stone,” answered Thumbling. He began to eat as eagerly as possible.
“Do you eat stones?” asked the giant.
“O yes,” replied Thumbling, “that is my ordinary food, and that is the reason I am not so big as you, who eat oxen; but it is also the reason why, little as I am, I am ten times as strong as you are. Now take me to your house.”
The Troll was conquered; and, marching before Thumbling like a dog before a little child, he led him to his monstrous cabin.
“Now listen,” said Thumbling to the giant, after they were fairly seated, “one of us has got to be the master, and the other the servant. Let us make this bargain: if I can't do whatever you do, I am to be your slave; if you are not able to do whatever I do, you are to be mine.”
“Agreed,” said the Troll; “I should admire to have such a little servant as you are. It is too much work for me to think, and you have wit enough for both; so begin with the trial. Here are my two buckets,—go and get the water to make the soup.”
Thumbling looked at the buckets. They were two enormous hogsheads, ten feet high and six broad. It would have been much easier for him to drown himself in them than to move them.
“O, ho!” shouted the giant, as he saw his hesitation; “and so you are stuck at the first thing, my boy! Do what I do, you know, and get the water.”