"Thy truth is a falsehood," said the mouse who had not yet had an opportunity of speaking. "I can make the soup, and I will do it."
"I have not travelled at all," said the last mouse. "I remained in our own country. It is not necessary to go to foreign lands--one can learn as well at home. I remained there. I have not acquired any information of unnatural beings. I have not eaten information, or conversed with owls. I confined myself to original thoughts. Will some one now be so good as to fill the kettle with water, and put it on? Let there be plenty of fire under it. Let the water boil--boil briskly; then throw the sausage-stick in. Will his majesty the King of the Mice be so condescending as to put his tail into the boiling pot, and stir it about? The longer he stirs it, the richer the soup will become. It costs nothing, and requires no other ingredients--it only needs to be stirred."
"Cannot another do this?" asked the king.
"No," said the mouse. "The effect can only be produced by the royal tail."
The water was boiled, and the King of the Mice prepared himself for the operation, though it was rather dangerous. He stuck his tail out, as mice are in the habit of doing in the dairy, when they skim the cream off the dish with their tails; but he had no sooner popped his tail into the warm steam than he drew it out and sprang down.
"Of course you are my queen," said he; "but we shall wait for the soup till our golden wedding, and the poor in my kingdom will have something to rejoice over in the future."
So the nuptials were celebrated; but many of the mice, when they went home, said, "It could not well be called soup of a sausage-stick, but rather soup of a mouse's tail."
They allowed that each of the narratives was very well told, but the whole might have been better. "I, for instance, would have related my adventures in such and such words...."
These were the critics, and they are always so wise--afterwards.
And this history went round the world. Opinions were divided about it, but the historian himself remained unmoved. And this is best in great things and in small.
Yonder, in the confined, crooked streets, amidst several poor-looking houses, stood a narrow high tenement, run up of framework that was much misshapen, with corners and ends awry. It was inhabited by poor people, the poorest of whom looked out from the garret, where, outside the little window, hung in the sunshine an old, dented bird-cage, which had not even a common cage-glass, but only the neck of a bottle inverted, with a cork below, and filled with water. An old maid stood near the open window; she had just been putting some chickweed into the cage, wherein a little linnet was hopping from perch to perch, and singing until her warbling became almost overpowering.