he had eaten his fill; "I am your Tsar. Lead me to my
capital, and there I will reward you!"--"What, thou wretched rogue!"
they cried, "thou dost presume to mock us, thou old ragamuffin, and
magnify thyself into a Tsar! Thou reward us, indeed!" And they looked
at him in amazement and scorn.--"Dare to laugh at me again," said he,
"and I'll have your heads chopped off!" For he forgot himself, and
thought he was at home.--"What! thou!" Then they fell upon him and
beat him. They beat him and hauled him about most unmercifully, and
then they drove him away, and off he went bellowing through the
forest.

He went on and on till at last he saw once more a smoke rising up out
of the wood. Again he thought, "That is surely my hunting-pavilion,"
and so he went up to it. And toward evening he came to another
brick-kiln. There, too, they had pity upon and kindly entreated him.
They gave him to eat and to drink. They also gave him ragged hose and
a tattered shirt, for they were very poor people. They took him to be
a runaway soldier, or some other poor man, but when he had eaten his
fill and clothed himself, he said to them, "I am your Tsar!" They
laughed at him, and again he began to talk roughly to the people. Then
they fell upon him and thrashed him soundly, and drove him right away.
And he wandered all by himself through the forest till it was night.
Then he laid him down beneath a tree, and so he passed the night, and
rising up very early, fared on his way straight before him.

At last he came to a third brick-kiln, but he did not tell the
brick-burners there that he was the Tsar. All he thought of now was
how he might reach his capital. The people here, too, treated him
kindly, and seeing that his feet were lame and bruised, they had
compassion upon him, and gave him a pair of very, very old boots. And
he asked them, "Do ye know by which way I can get to the capital?"
They told him, but it was a long, long journey that would take the
whole day.

So he went the way they had told him, and he went on and on till he
came to a little town, and there the roadside sentries stopped him.
"Halt!" they cried. He halted. "Your passport!"[20]--"I have
none."--"What! no passport? Then thou art a vagabond. Seize him!" they
cried. So they seized him and put him in a dungeon. Shortly after they
came to examine him, and asked him, "Whence art thou?"--"From such and
such a capital," said he. Then they ordered him to be put in irons and
taken