"Well! there was a couple of old folk who had three sons, the first was called Peter, the second Paul, and the third Osborn Boots, for he always lay and grubbed about in the ashes.
"They were hopeful youths, but Peter, who was the eldest, was said to be the hopefullest, and so he asked his father if he might have leave to go out into the world and try his luck.
"'Yes! you shall have it,' said the old fellow. 'Better late than never, my boy.'
"So he got brandy in a flask, and food in his wallet, and then he threw his fare on his back and toddled down the hill. And when he had walked a while, he fell upon an old wife who lay by the road side.
"'Ah! my dear boy, give me a morsel of food to-day,' said the old wife.
"But Peter hardly so much as looked on one side, and then he held his head straight and went on his way.
"'Ay, ay,' said the old wife, 'go along, and you shall see what you shall see.'
"So Peter went far and farther than far, till he came at last to the king's grange. There stood the king in the gallery, feeding the cocks and hens.
"'Good evening and God bless your majesty," said Peter.
"'Chick-a-biddy! chick-a-biddy!' said the king, and scattered corn both east and west, and took no heed of Peter.
"'Well!' said Peter to himself, 'you may just stand there and scatter corn and cackle chicken-tongue till you turn into a bear,' and so he went into the kitchen and sat down on the bench as though he were a great man.
"'What sort of a stripling are you,' said the cook, for Peter had not yet got his beard. That he thought jibes and mocking, and so he fell to beating and banging the kitchen-maid. But while he was hard at it, in came the king, and made them cut three red stripes out of his back, and then they rubbed salt into the wound, and sent him home again the same way he came.
"Now as soon as Peter was well home, Paul must set off in his turn. Well! well! he too got brandy in his flask and food in his wallet, and he threw his fare over his back and toddled down the hill. When he had got on his way he, too, met the old wife, who begged for food, but he strode past her and made no answer; and at the king's grange he did not fare a pin better than Peter. The king called 'chick-a-biddy,' and the kitchen-maid called him a clumsy boy, and when he was going to bang and beat her for that, in came the king with a butcher's knife, and cut three red stripes out of him, and rubbed hot embers in, and sent him home again with a sore back.