Stranica 194 [194]
I54 GRIMM S FAIRY TALES.
may feast and enjoy themselves, for the table will provide
enough for all.”
When the company was all assembled, he put his table in
the middle of the room, and said, " Table, be covered! ”
But the table never stirred, and remained just as.empty as
any other table that does not understand talking. When the
poor joiner saw that the table remained unfurnished, he felt
ashamed to stand there like a fool. ‘The company laughed
at him freely, and were obliged to return unfilled and un¬
cheered to their houses. The father gathered his pieces
together and returned to-his tailoring, and the son went to
work under another master.
The second son had bound himself apprentice to a miller.
And when his time was up, his master said to him,
“As you have behaved yourself so well, I will give you
an ass of a remarkable kind: he will draw no cart, and carry
no sac
“What is the good of him then?” asked the young
apprentice.
‘He spits out gold,” answered the miller. "If you put
a cloth before him and say, ‘ Bricklebrit,’ out come gold pieces.”
‘That is a capital thing,” said the apprentice, and, thank¬
ing his master, he went out into the world. Whenever he
wanted gold he had only to say “ Bricklebrit” to his ass, and
there was a shower of gold pieces, and so he had no cares as he
travelled about. Wherever he came he lived on the best, and
the dearer the better, as his purse was always full. And when he
had been looking about him about the world a long time, he
thought he would go and find out his father, who would per¬
haps forget his anger and receive him kindly because of his
gold ass. And it happened that he came to lodge in the same
inn where his brothers table had been exchanged. He was
leading his ass in his hand, and the landlord was for taking
the ass from him to tie it up, but the young apprentice said,
“Don’t trouble yourself, old fellow, I will take him into
the stable myself and tie him up, and then I shall know where
to find him.”
The landlord thought this was very strange, and he never
supposed that a man who was accustomed to look after his ass
himself could have much to spend; but when the stranger, .