n somewhat used to strange things by this time, so he
began to think that he would like to see what sort of a creature it was
upon which he was riding thus through the sky. So he contrived, in spite
of his net and cap, to push up the handkerchief from over one eye. Out
he peeped, and then he saw as clear as day what the strange steed was.

He was riding upon a he-goat as black as night, and in front of him
was the magician riding upon just such another, his great red robe
fluttering out behind him in the moonlight like huge red wings.

"Great herring and little fishes!" roared the fisherman; "it is a
billy-goat!"

Instantly goats, old man, and all were gone like a flash. Down fell the
fisherman through the empty sky, whirling over and over and around and
around like a frog. He held tightly to his net, but away flew his fur
cap, the golden money falling in a shower like sparks of yellow light.
Down he fell and down he fell, until his head spun like a top.

By good-luck his house was just below, with its thatch of soft
rushes. Into the very middle of it he tumbled, and right through the
thatch--bump!--into the room below.

The good wife was in bed, snoring away for dear life; but such a noise
as the fisherman made coming into the house was enough to wake the dead.
Up she jumped, and there she sat, staring and winking with sleep, and
with her brains as addled as a duck's egg in a thunder-storm.

"There!" said the fisherman, as he gathered himself up and rubbed his
shoulder, "that is what comes of following a woman's advice!"

All the good folk clapped their hands, not so much because of the story
itself, but because it was a woman who told it.

"Aye, aye," said the brave little Tailor, "there is truth in what you
tell, fair lady, and I like very well the way in which you have told
it."

"Whose turn is it next?" said Doctor Faustus, lighting a fresh pipe of
tobacco.

"Tis the turn of yonder old gentleman," said the Soldier who cheated
the Devil, and he pointed with the stem of his pipe to the Fisherman who
unbottled the Genie that King Solomon had corked up and thrown into the
sea. "Every one else hath told a story, and now it is his turn."

"I will not deny, my friend, that what you say is true, and that it is
my turn," said the Fisherman. "Nor will I deny that I have already a
story in my mind. It is," said he, "about a certain prince, and of how
he went through many and one adventures, and at last discovere