"Now listen," said Thumbling to the giant, after they were fairly seated, "one of us has got to be the master, and the other the servant. Let us make this bargain: if I can't do whatever you do, I am to be your slave; if you are not able to do whatever I do, you are to be mine." "Agreed," said the Troll; "I should admire to have such a little servant as you are. It is too much work for me to think, and you have wit enough for both; so begin with the trial. Here are my two buckets,--go and get the water to make the soup." Thumbling looked at the buckets. They were two enormous hogsheads, ten feet high and six broad. It would have been much easier for him to drown himself in them than to move them. "O, ho!" shouted the giant, as he saw his hesitation; "and so you are stuck at the first thing, my boy! Do what I do, you know, and get the water." "What is the good of that?" replied Thumbling, calmly; "I will go and get the spring itself, and put that in the pot." "No! no!" said the Troll; "that won't do. You have already half spoiled my forest, and I don't want you to take my spring away, lest to-morrow I shall go dry. You may attend to the fire, and I will go and get the water." After having hung up the kettle, the giant put into it an ox cut into pieces, fifty cabbages, and a wagon-load of carrots. He then skimmed the broth with a frying-pan, tasting it every now and then, to see if it was done. When all was ready, he turned to Thumbling, and said:-- "Now to the table. We'll see if you can do what I can there. I feel like eating the whole ox, and you into the bargain. I think I will serve you for dessert." "All right," said Thumbling; but before sitting down to the table, he slipped under his jacket his stout leather bag, which reached down to his feet. The two champions now set to work. The Troll ate and ate, and Thumbling wasn't idle; only he pitched everything, beef, cabbage, carrots, and all, into his bag, when the giant wasn't looking. "Ouf!" at last grunted the Troll; "I can't do much more; I have got to unbutton the lower button of my waistcoat." "Eat away, starveling!" cried Thumbling, sticking the half of a cabbage into his bag. "Ouf!" groaned the giant; "I have got to unbutton another button. But what sort of an ostrich's stomach have you got, my son? I should think you were used to eating stones!" "Eat away, lazy-bones!" said Thumbling, sticking a huge junk of beef into his bag. "Ouf!" sighed the giant, for the third time; "I have got to unbutton the third button. I am almost suffocated; and how is it with you, sorcerer?" "Bah!" answered Thumbling; "it is the easiest thing in the world to relieve yourself; and so saying he took his knife, and slit his jacket and the bag under it the whole length of his stomach. "It is your turn now," he said to the giant; "do as I do, you know, _if you can_."