Page:Danish fairy and folk tales.djvu/353

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

THE BOILED EGGS

posed that boiled corn would grow in the field and become ripe in a week's time.

"It is no more remarkable than that chickens can be hatched from boiled eggs," remarked the lawyer, looking straight at the judge.

Now the judge began to understand. He turned around and asked the cattle-driver whether the eggs he had eaten were boiled.

Of course they were.

The result was that the cunning landlord was fined a hundred dollars, fifty of which were paid to the clever lawyer, and fifty to the man whom the landlord had intended to cheat so shamefully.

The cattle-driver merrily returned home, well contented with the result of his journey. He often used to tell his friends of the time when he received five dollars for each boiled egg he had eaten.