"The child! the child! and nothing else!" shrieked the demon, and then, regaining himself, with a smile added: "And your last wish?"
"If I lose my boy," answered Fusticus, "my joy on this earth is for ever gone. If you take my child, then, oh Spirit of Darkness and Deceit! then, may I for all eternity pass my life in the Moon!" "Granted too is your third——" "But I have not finished yet," broke in Fusticus, "and may my child for ever remain with me there!"
And there you may see them both to this day, but the child was changed into a spider. And every now and then the good little spider lets himself down by his thread to the earth and takes his father back all the news of the day.
But if you, Reader, had three wishes granted to you, I hope you would choose them better and more wisely than did old Fusticus!
