A PIECE OF GOOD LUCK

that the princess would marry the man to whose head
belonged the lock of hair that she had.

A lock of hair! Why, every man had lost a lock of
hair! Maybe the princess could fit it on again, and then
the fortune of him to whom it belonged would be made.
All the men in the town crowded up to the king’s palace.
But all for no use, for never a one of them was fitted with
his own hair.

As for Jacob Stuck, he too had heard what the herald
had proclaimed. Yes; he too had heard it, and his heart
jumped and hopped within him like a young lamb in the
springtime. He knew whose hair it was the princess
had. Away he went by himself, and rubbed up his piece
of blue glass, and there stood the Genie.

“ What are thy commands ?” said he.

“T am,” said Jacob Stuck, “going up to the king’s
palace to marry the princess, and I would have a proper
escort.”

“To hear is to obey,” said the Genie.

He smote his hands together, and instantly there
appeared a score of attendants who took Jacob Stuck,
and led him into another room, and began clothing him in
a suit so magnificent that it dazzled the eyes to look at it.
He smote his hands together again, and out in the court-
-yard there appeared a troop of horsemen to escort Jacob
Stuck to the palace, and they were all clad in gold-and-
silver armour. He smote his hands together again, and
there appeared twenty-and-one horses—twenty as black
as night and one as white as milk, and it twinkled and
sparkled all over with gold and jewels, and at the head of
each horse of the one-and-twenty horses stood a slave
clad in crimson velvet to hold the bridle. Again he

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