The Prince thanked his informant, and proceeded to look for a tailor's shop, where he might provide himself with clothes; for he perceived that people eyed him with suspicion, and well they might. Having found a shop, he entered, and desired to be immediately fitted with a prince's suit. The master tailor, knowing by his proud air that he was a Prince, and supposing he had been on some youthful adventure, and had thus lost his clothes, was delighted to serve him, and, running to the shelves and drawers, pulled out all the princes' suits, and spread them before his customer. The Prince selected some very handsome clothes, and, having washed himself, put them on, and found they fitted him exactly. He declared his satisfaction with them, and putting his hand in his pocket for his purse, found nothing of the kind there, the tailor not furnishing his clothes in that way. He now remembered that all his money was in the clothes he had left behind him in the mountain, and explained his condition to the tailor. The latter, however, had no wish to deal with princes who had no money, and ordered him to instantly take off the suit. The Prince, who was strictly honest, was about obeying, when one of his feet (which were very tender with his much walking) giving him a sudden pain, he stooped down to see what was in his shoe, and taking it off, out rolled a magnificent pearl and two sapphires.
"There," said the Prince, picking them up, and handing them to the tailor, "if these will be of any use to you, you can have them for the clothes."
The tailor, filled with admiration at the sight of these jewels, and with the most profound respect for a prince who carried such wealth in his shoes, accepted them instantly, and the Prince left the shop. But the good tailor, gazing joyfully at his new-found treasures, was so conscientious and grateful, that he ran out after the Prince, and gave him back one of the sapphires as change.
It may as well be here related that the tailor sold the pearl to a jeweler, who gave him one third of its value, with which he retired into the country, bought great possessions, and lived in much dignity for many years. Some time afterward, the Queen Altabec happening to pass the jeweler's shop, and seeing the pearl in the window, immediately ordered the execution of the jeweler and the seizure of the pearl, which she placed above all the other jewels in the tip-top of her crown, where it still remains. As for the sapphire, the tailor's wife put that away for a rainy day; but as the rainy day never came, and she never went to look for it in its hiding-place, it made no earthly difference to her that her youngest child had found it, and had swapped it off for half of a little stale apple-pie.