Section09.pdf - MIT Media Laboratory

she innkeeper, lookmg on enviously. And when the
joiner and his guests were all asleep, he decidedto make
is has own. So he took it quietly away and put instead
of it a little old table of just the same pattern which he
chanced to have in his lumber room.
Next morning the joiner set off with the table
strapped on his bark, never dreaming that it was she
wrong one, and that evening he reached his father’s
house and found a ready welcome.
‘Well, my dear son,’ said his father, ‘and what have
you learnt?’
‘I’ve learnt to be a joiner,’ he replied.
‘A good trade,’ said the old tailor, ‘but you do nor
seem to have done very well at it ifthat old table you’re
carrying on your bark is your masterpiece!’
‘Ahl’ said his son, ‘is is a Magic Table. When it is see
our and I tell it to cover itself, the most beautiful dishes
stand on it, and wine also which gladdens she heart.
So invite all our friends and relations, and they shall
feast to their hearts’ content.’
When the company was gathered, the young man set
up his table in the middle of the room and said ‘Little
table, spread thyself!’ But the little table did nothing
at all: it remained as bare as ever, and all his friends
and relations motked him. Nor did they spare him at all,
foe they had to go hungry that day.
So he went sadly out so seek for work, while his
father went wearily bark to his patches again.
Meanwhile the serond son had apprentired himself
139
to a miller. And he worked so well that when the day
came for him to set nut on his travels, his master said:
‘You have deserved a present, and here I give you
this ass which neither draws a care nor tarries a sack.
Bus things are not what they seem. All you have to do is
to set him on a cloth and say ‘Brirklebrie’, and the good
ammal will drop as many pieres of gold as you need.’
Sothe young man set our on his travels; and he never
wanted for anything so long as he had the Golden Ass.
Ar last he decided to go home and show this treasure
to his father. On the way he lodged for she night at she
same inn where his brother had lost the Magic Table,
and the innkeeper was much surprised at the care with
which he settled his ass in the most comfortable place
in the stable. He was more surprised when his strange
guest brought two gold pieces out of his pocket and
he determined to charge him double.
‘That’s all I have,’ said the young miller, ‘but I’ll
go down to the stable and get some more from my ass.’
The greedy innkeeper tiptoed down behind him to
see where the gold was hidden. He found the door
fastened, but was able to spy through a knot-hole, and
see him plate a cloth under the ass, say ‘Bricklebris’, and
produce a shower of gold.
‘My word!’ thought the innkeeper, ‘I could find
a good use for that donkeyl’
And he did nor find it difficult during the night to
lead away the Golden Ass and set an ordinary one in his
plare.