“Well, the King then called a council of Wise Men together, to consider what should be done with the Grey Pumpkin. Some were for keeping it in a museum (and charging a fee of 6d. for visitors to go and look at it); while others advised burying it away in the deepest dungeon of the City, just in case the dwarf ever got out of the Pumpkin; while a third section of the Council, deriding the two former suggestions, urged that the Grey Pumpkin be flung into a ditch beside the High Road, outside the City Gates. The spokesman for this last section was a brilliant, reckless young man, an eloquent speaker; he laughed at the caution which prompted the first two parties to suggest a museum or a dungeon, and looked upon the latter as a grave reflection on the Magician who had so kindly come to their aid. Did they not trust in the spell which kept the Pumpkin tightly closed? he asked the Council. And besides, what person, dwarf, man, woman, or child, would be alive after being shut up in a Pumpkin for twenty-four hours? No, let them show their scorn for the thing by flinging it away, outside the walls of their City. “Much more than this did the young man say, and in the end he gained his way. The Grey Pumpkin was carried to the gates of the City, escorted by a solemn procession, and thrown into a ditch outside the walls, amid much hissing and booing from the populace. The young Councillor who had suggested all this got carried away by the excitement of the moment, and he dashed forward and gave the Grey Pumpkin that was lying quietly at the bottom of the ditch a good hearty kick: this act was greeted with cheers and shouts of approval from the crowd, until they saw that the Pumpkin, which had been sent spinning, had landed on the High Road, a dozen yards away, and was slowly rolling down the hill. The crowd fell silent, and watched. On, on the Grey Pumpkin rolled, down the hill from the City, past my cottage door—I remember—on, on, until it disappeared at length into a dark forest right down at the bottom of the High Road.