ALL THINGS ARE AS FATE WILLS

and which the attendants had thrown over the garden
wall and into the river when they had dressed him in the
fine clothes the king gave him.

He spread his clothes out in the sun until they were
dry, and then he put them on and went back into the
town again.

“Well,” said the king, that morning, to his chief coun-
cillor, “what do you think now? Am I not greater than
Fate? Did J not make the beggar rich? and shall I not
paint my father’s words out from the wall, and put my own —
there instead ?”

“I do not know,” said the councillor, shaking his head.
‘Let us first see what has become of the beggar.”

“So be it,” said the king; and he and the councillor
set off to see whether the beggar had done as he ought to
do with the good things that the king had given him. So
they came to the town-gate, and there, lo and behold!
the first thing that they saw was the beggar with his
wooden bowl in his hand asking those who passed by for
a stray penny or two.

When the king saw him he turned without a word,
and rode back home again. ‘“ Very well,” said he to the
chief councillor, “I have tried to make the beggar rich
and have failed; nevertheless, if I cannot make him
I can ruin him in spite of Fate, and that I will show
you.”

So all that while the beggar sat at the town-gate and
begged until came noontide, when who should he see
coming but the same three men who had come for him
the day before. ‘Ah, ha!” said he to himself, “now the
king is going to give me some more good things.” And

317.