A PIECE OF GOOD LUCK

feasted together until nearly midnight. Then, again, the
door opened, and the beautiful serving-lad came with the
tray and something upon it covered with a napkin. Jacob
Stuck unfolded the napkin, and this time it was a cup
made of a single ruby, and filled to the brim with gold
money. And the wonder of the cup was this: that no
matter how much money you took out of it, it was always
full. “Take this,” said Jacob Stuck, “to remind you of
me.” Then the clock struck twelve, and instantly all
was darkness, and the Genie carried the princess home
again. ©

But the princess had brought her piece of chalk with
her, as the prime-minister had advised; and in some way
or other she contrived, either in coming or going, to mark
a cross upon the door of Jacob Stuck’s house.

But, clever as she was, the Genie of Good Luck was
more clever still. He saw what the princess did; and, as
soon as he had carried her home, he went all through the
town and marked a cross upon every door, great and
small, little and big, just as the princess had done upon
the door of Jacob Stuck’s house, only upon the prime-
minister’s door he put two crosses. The next morning
everybody was wondering what all the crosses on the
house-doors meant, and the king and the prime-minister

"were no wiser than they had been before.

But the princess had brought her ruby cup with her,
and she and the king could not look at it and wonder at it
enough.

“Pooh!” said the prime-minister; ‘‘I tell you it is
nothing else in the world but just a piece of good luck—
that is all it is. As for the rogue who is playing all these

tricks, let the princess keep a pair of scissors by her, and,
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