--You young people,
Mopsus and Dorippe, for aught I care, can dance as long as the monaulus
sounds, and Semestre stays in the house."
"We want first to see what the hens can do," cried the dark-haired girl,
clinging to her lover's arm, and turning with Mopsus toward the
exhibition, which now began again.
There was many an exclamation of astonishment, many a laugh, for, when
the little man ordered his largest cock to show its skill in riding, it
jumped nimbly on the donkey's back; when he ordered it to clean its
horse, it pulled a red feather out of the ornaments on the ass's head;
and finally proved itself a trumpeter, by stretching its neck and
beginning to crow.
The hens performed still more difficult feats, for they drew from a
wooden box for each spectator a leaf of a tree, on which certain
characters were visible.
The scrawl was intelligible only to the conjurer, but was said to contain
infallible information about the future, and the little man offered to
interpret the writing to each individual.
This trainer of hens was a clever dwarf, with very quick ears. He had
distinctly understood that, through Semestre, he was to lose a nice
cheese, and, when the housekeeper returned, ordered a hen to tell each
person present how many years he or she had lived in the world.
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