She spoke, and there was three feet of food placed by her side. The husband, beside himself with rage, screamed out— “Oh! what a woman! By one stroke you have lost all our benefits. To punish you I wish the pudding would hang itself on the point of your nose.” Immediately the pudding made a leap and attached itself to the old dame’s nose. At this the husband cried out, “Hello! Angry as I am, I have also by my fault lost a wish.” Seizing the sausage to detach it, they pulled, first one, then the other, almost dislocating the nose, but the sausage held on. “Alas!” said the woman in tears, “if this is always to remain hanging here, how can I live?” The husband, on the contrary, without being at all disturbed, said, “If even yet our wish of fortune is fulfilled, we could make a tube of gold to hide this sausage, and then drawing it out at length, it will be only more beautiful to see.” The wife, still more miserable, cried out, “Oh, wretched me, only to think that fortune should wish to put it there. Well! whether you be rich or live long, as for me, I should like to kill myself.” Saying this she took a cord and went to strangle herself at the end of a beam. The husband, struck with fear, and touched with compassion, hastened to set her free. “Stop,” said he, “there remains one wish to us. Have your own way about it.” “If that is so, I wish that what hangs to my nose comes loose. Quick, quick, that it may go swift away. That is my chief wish.” She had hardly finished speaking when the sausage fell plump to the ground, and out of the midst of the heaven an angry voice was heard: “You have obtained the three things which you wished for, and have you gained a great advantage? If you wish to enjoy true blessing in this world be content to live with what Heaven gives, and do not form vain desires.” The two old folks spitted the pudding, ate it, and from this night they abstained from foolish wishes. On the morrow, agreeably to their supreme ambition, which was to have a baby, they found a little fatherless and motherless orphan. Having adopted it as their child, they gave him a good education and lived happily to extreme old age. The following illustrates official shrewdness and rapacity: THE HISTORY OF A NOSE. In the chief city of Chulla, there was a politician who was in debt to the government to the amount of ten thousand strings of cash. Unable to pay the same, he was condemned to death. Cast into prison, he awaited only the orders of the king to carry out the sentence. As he had thought hard without discovering any means to get out of the affair, he bethought himself of a stratagem. So, addressing the jailer, he said: “Helloa! you there, you’ll do well to let me go free a little while.” “Helloa!” answered the jailer, “what wretched talk! After I have set free a man who ought to be put to death to-morrow or day after to-morrow, what shall I do?”