THE STOOL OF FORTUNE

told their own notions of the matter. But all agreed that
three days would show whether what had been told was
' true or no.

As for the soldier, he knew no more how to do what
he had promised to do than my grandmother’s cat; for
where was he to get clothes fine enough for the King of
the Wind to wear? So there he sat on his three-legged
stool thinking’ and thinking, and if he had known all that
I know he would not have given two turns of his wit upon
it. ‘I wish,” says he, at last—I wish that this stool
could help me now as well as it can carry me through the
sky. I wish,” says he, “that I had a suit of clothes such
as the King of the Wind might really wear.”

The wonders of the three-legged stool were wonders
indeed !

Hardly had the words left the soldier’s lips when down
came something tumbling about his ears from up in the
air; and what should it be but just such a suit of clothes
as he had in his mind—all crusted over with gold and

_ silver and jewels.

“Well,” says the soldier, as soon as he had got over
his wonder again, ‘I would rather sit upon this stool than
any I ever saw.” And so would I, if I had been. in his
place, and had a few minutes to think of all that I
wanted.

So he found out the trick of the stool, and after that
wishing and having were easy enough, and by the time
the three days were ended the real King of the Wind
himself could not have cut a finer figure. Then down sat
the soldier upon his stool, and wished himself at the king’s.
palace. Away he flew through the air, and by-and-by
there he was, just where he had been before. He put his

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