g heard the second one say:

'Oh, dear friend, do give me that grain of rice, and get another one
for yourself. You see my boots are so dirty that, if I were to go upon
the king's eating place, I should defile it, and I can't do that, it
would be so very rude.'

But the owner of the grain of rice only replied:

'If you want rice go and get it. No one will notice your dirty boots;
and you don't suppose that I am going to carry rice for all our
kindred?'

Then the king laughed.

The queen looked at herself up and down, but she could not see or feel
anything in her appearance to make the king laugh, so she said:

'What are you laughing at?'

'Did I laugh?' replied the king.

'Of course you did,' retorted the queen; 'and if you think that I am
ridiculous I wish you would say so, instead of behaving in that stupid
way! What are you laughing at?'

'I'm not laughing at anything,' answered the king.

'Very well, but you _did_ laugh, and I want to know why.'

'Well, I'm afraid I can't tell you,' said the king.

'You _must_ tell me,' replied the queen impatiently. 'If you laugh
when there's nothing to laugh at you must be ill or mad. What is the
matter?'

Still the king refused to say, and still the queen declared that she
must and would know. For days the quarrel went on, and the queen gave
her husband no rest, until at last the poor man was almost out of his
wits, and thought that, as life had become for him hardly worth living
while this went on, he might as well tell her the secret and take the
consequences.

'But,' thought he, 'if I am to become a stone, I am not going to lie,
if I can help it, on some dusty highway, to be kicked here and there
by man and beast, flung at dogs, be used as the plaything of naughty
children, and become generally restless and miserable. I will be a
stone at the bottom of the cool river, and roll gently about there
until I find some secure resting-place where I can stay for ever.'

So he told his wife that if she would ride with him to the middle of
the river he would tell her what he had laughed at. She thought he
was joking, and laughingly agreed; their horses were ordered and they
set out.

[Illustration: THE KING LAUGHS AT THE BILLYGOAT]

On the way they came to a fine well beneath the shade of some lofty,
wide-spreading trees, and the king proposed that they should get off
and rest a little, drink some of the cool water, and then pass on. To
this the queen consented;