“What shall I do with the key now? I am undone.”
The Tartaro says to him:
“Go again to your mother, and tell her that your left ear hurts you, and ask her to look, and you will slip the key into her pocket.”
The Tartaro tells him, too, that he will soon have need of him, and that he will only have to call him, and he will be his servant for ever.
He puts the key back; and everyone came to the dinner. When they had eaten well, the king said to them that they must go and see this curious thing. He takes them all with him. When they are come to the stable, he finds it empty. Judge of the anger of this king, and of his shame. He said:
“I should like to eat the heart, half cooked, and without salt, of him who has let my beast go.”
Some time afterwards the two brothers quarreled in presence of their mother, and one said to the other:
“I will tell our father about the affair of the Tartaro.”
When the mother heard that, she was afraid for her son, and said to him: