"My husband, give back to Teenchy Duck this purse you have taken, or else we shall be ruined."
"No," cried the Prince, "she shall never have it!"
All this time Teenchy Duck was promenading up and down, to the right and to the left, singing, at the top of her voice:
"Quack! quack! Give me back my beautiful money!"
"Heavens!" said the Prince, stopping his ears, "I am tired of hearing this ugly fowl squall and squawk. Quick! throw her in the well or the furnace, so that we may be rid of her."
"What shall we do first?" the servants asked.
"It matters not," said the Prince, "so long as we are rid of her."
The servants took Teenchy Duck and threw her in the well, thinking this the easiest and the quickest way to dispose of her.
As Teenchy Duck was falling, she cried: "Come to my assistance, good Ladder, or I am undone."
The Ladder immediately came out of the satchel, and leaned against the walls of the well. Teenchy Duck came up the rounds, singing:
"Quack, quack! Give me back my beautiful money!"
Everybody was astonished, and the Prince's wife kept saying: "Give this witch her money."
"They would say that I am afraid of a Teenchy Duck," said the Prince of the Seven Golden Cows. "I will never give it up." Then, speaking to his servants, he said: "Heat the oven; heat it to a white heat, and throw this witch in."
The servants were compelled to obey, but they were so frightened that none dared touch her. At last, one bolder than the rest seized her by the end of the wing and threw her in the red-hot oven. Everybody thought that this was the end of Teenchy Duck, but she had had time to cry out:
"Oh, my dear friend River, come to my assistance, or I shall be roasted."
The River rushed out and quenched the fire and cooled the oven.
When the Prince went to see what was left of Teenchy Duck, she met him, and began to repeat her familiar refrain:
"Quack, quack! Give me back my beautiful money!"
The Prince of the Seven Golden Cows was furious.
"You are all blockheads!" he cried to his servants. "You never knew how to do anything. Get out of here! I will drive you off the place! Hereafter I will take charge of this fiend myself."
That night, before retiring, the Prince and his wife went and got Teenchy Duck, and prepared to give her such a beating as they had no doubt would cause her death.