WOMAN'S WIT

had done all that the king wished, the king conjured him
into a bottle, corked it tightly, and set the royal seal on
the stopper. Then he took the bottle a thousand miles
away into the wilderness, and, when no man was looking,
buried it in the ground, and this is the way the story
begins.

Well, the years came and the years went, and the
world grew older and older, and kept changing (as all
things do but two), so that by-and-by the wilderness
where King Solomon had hid the bottle became a great
town, with people coming and going, and all as busy as
bees about their own business and other folks’ affairs.

Among these townspeople was a little Tailor, who
made clothes for many a worse man to wear, and who
lived all alone in a little house with no one to darn his
stockings for him, and no one to meddle with his coming
and going, for he was a bachelor.

The little Tailor was a thrifty soul, and by hook and
crook had laid by enough money to fill a small pot, and
then he had to bethink himself of some safe place to hide
it. So one night he took a spade anda lamp and went
out in the garden to bury his money. He drove his
spade into the ground—and click! He struck something
hard that rang under his foot with a sound as of iron.
“ Hello!” said he, “what have we here?” and if he had
known as much as you and I do, he would have filled in
the earth, and tramped it down, and have left that plate
of broth for somebody else to burn his mouth with.

As it was, he scraped away the soil, and then he found
a box of adamant, with a ring in the lid to lift it by.
The Tailor clutched the ring and bent his back, and up

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