The GREEN Fairy Book - online children's book

Illustrated classic fairy tales for children by Andrew Lang

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152
THE GREEN FAIRY BOOK.
was, so he had come to the wind. And he added that he had been shamefully robbed, and that the laths were of gold and the tiles of diamond and all the furniture in silver and gold, and he inquired if the wind had not seen such a palace during his wanderings.
And the wind said yes, and that all that day he had been blowing backward and forward over it without being able to move one single tile. "Oh, do tell me where it is," cried the young man. "It is a long way off," re­plied the wind, "on the other side of the Red Sea." But our traveler was not discouraged—he had already journeyed too far.
So he set forth at once, and somehow or other he managed to reach that distant land. And he inquired if any one wanted a gardener. He was told that the head gardener at the castle had just left, and perhaps he might have a chance of getting the place. The young man lost no time, but walked up to the castle and asked if they were in want of a gardener; and how happy he was when they agreed to take him! Now he passed most of his day in gossiping with the servants about the wealth of their masters and the wonderful things in the house. He made friends with one of the maids, who told him the history of the snuff-box, and he coaxed her to let him see it. One evening she managed to get hold of it, and the young man watched carefully where she hid it away in a secret place in the bedchamber of her mistress.
The following night, when every one was fast asleep, he crept in and took the snuff-box. Think of his joy as he opened the lid! When it asked him, as of yore, "What do you want?" he replied: "What do I want? What do I want? Why, I want to go with my palace to the old place, and for the king and the queen and all their serv­ants to be drowned in the Red Sea."
He hardly finished speaking when he found himself back again with his wife, while all the other inhabitants of the palace were lying at the bottom of the Red Sea.*
* Sebillot.
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