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He spoke of his prisoners, especially of one of them, who had uttered some very imprudent words; and when these had been repeated, and written down and read, 'The whole, said he, 'was only soup of a sausage-stick; but that soup may cost him dear. I felt interested in the prisoner," continued the little mouse, "and I watched for an opportunity to go in where he was.
At the dawn of day there arose a fresh breeze; the surface of the lake became ruffled; all the delicately fine veils and flags disappeared in the air; the swinging kiosks of cobwebs, the suspension bridges and balustrades, or whatever they are called, which were constructed from leaf to leaf, vanished into nothing; six elves brought me my sausage-stick, and at the same time asked if I had any wish they could fulfil; whereupon I begged them to tell me how soup could be made from a sausage-stick.
"He piques himself exceedingly upon his performances, and fancies he is the owl of the tower. The sound ought to be very loud, but it is extremely weak. 'Soup of a sausage-stick! "I begged her to give me the recipe for the soup, and she explained it to me thus: "'Soup of a sausage-stick is but a cant phrase among men, and is differently interpreted.
When I had digested this, and another to boot, I perceived how my inside was stirred up; so I ate part of a third, and then I considered myself a poet, and every one about me said I was. I had headaches, of course, and all sorts of aches. I thought over what story I could work up about a sausage-stick, and there was no end of sticks and pegs crowding my mind.
She had lost her sausage-stick, but not her voice; for she began talking with the utmost velocity, as if every one was dying to hear her, and no one could say anything to the purpose but herself. How she did chatter! But she had arrived so unexpectedly that no one had time to find fault with her or her talking, so she went on. Now let us listen. "I went straight to the greatest city," she said.
They would have gone to the four corners of the earth, if only good fortune might attend their enterprise. Each of them took with her a sausage-stick to remind her what she was travelling for. It was to be her walking staff. On the 1st of May they set out, and on the 1st of May, a year after, they returned; but only three of them.
Girls and young men danced round it, and sang to the accompaniment of the fiddler's violin. All went on merrily till after the sun had set, and the moon had risen, but I took no part in the festivity; for what had a little mouse to do with a forest ball? I sat down amidst the soft moss, and held fast my sausage-stick.
The young owls made a great fuss about everything. "'Don't make soup of a sausage-stick, said she. "This was the severest thing she could say to them, she was so very fond of her family. I felt so much inclined to place some reliance in her that I cried "Pip!" from the crevice in which I was concealed.
"'What we can do, said the foremost, laughing, 'you have just seen. You could scarcely have recognised your sausage-stick. "'You mean as you transformed it, said I; and then I told them the cause of my journey, and what was expected at home from it. 'Of what use, I asked, 'will it be to the King of the Mice and all our large community that I have seen this beautiful sight?
"Oh!" said the little mouse, "it is what is called an effect;" and so she turned her sausage-stick. And behold, there were no more flowers visible! She held only the naked stick, and she moved it like a stick for beating time. "The violets are for sight, smell, and touch, the elf told me; but there are still wanting hearing and taste."
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