t hours brought him to
the frontier; but travelling, now that he was used to his dear
slippers, came very hard to him. Having arrived at the border, he
chose the usual road for reaching the most lonely part of the forest,
for he hated all men, and resolved to live there by himself. In a
thick portion of the wood, he lighted on a place, which seemed to him
quite suitable for the resolution he had taken. A clear brook,
surrounded by large shady fig-trees, and a soft turf, invited him: he
threw himself down, determined to taste food no more, but calmly to
await his end. Amid his sorrowful reflections on death, he fell
asleep; when he awoke, he was tormented by hunger, and began to think
that starving to death was rather an unpleasant affair; so he looked
around to find something to eat.

Fine ripe figs hung upon the tree beneath which he had slept; he
stretched forth his hand to pluck some; their taste was delicious, and
then he descended into the brook to slake his thirst. But what was his
horror, when the water showed his head adorned with two immense ears,
and a long thick nose! Amazed, he clapped his hands upon his ears, and
they were really more than half an ell long.

"I deserve ass's ears!" he exclaimed; "for, like an ass, have I
trodden Fortune under my feet." He wandered around among the trees,
and feeling hunger again, was obliged to have recourse once more to
the fig-tree, for he could find nothing else that was eatable. After
the second portion of figs, it struck him that if his ears could find
room beneath his large turban, he would not look so ridiculous, and,
on trying it, he found that his ears had vanished. He ran straight
back to the stream, in order to convince himself thereof; it was
actually so; his ears had resumed their original figure, his long
misshapen nose was no more! He soon perceived how all this had
happened; from the first fig-tree he had received the long nose and
ears, the second had relieved him of them: he saw with joy that kind
destiny yet again placed in his hands the means of becoming fortunate.
He plucked, therefore, from each tree as many figs as he could carry,
and went back to the land which shortly before he had left. There, in
the first town, he disguised himself by means of different garments;
then, turning again to the city inhabited by the king, he soon arrived
at it.

For about a year ripe fruit had been quite scarce; Little Muck,
therefore, placed himself before the gat