At these words the genie strode over to the witch and-- _“Well, bless my soul,” interposed the King, “what business did he have to send that witch here, I’d like to know? So_ that’s _how she came to live in my Forest! A fine piece of work, I must say! A pretty how-d’ye-do, to send their cast-off witches over here! What business had he to--”_ _“Never mind, grandfather” said Bojohn, “do let him go on with his story.”_ _“A fine piece of work!” said the King. “Of all the high-handed, brazen-faced--”_ _“My dear!” said the Queen._ The genie strode over to the witch in three steps and plucked her down with one hand. He then tucked her under his arm like a sack of corn, and stood before the one-armed youth. “Stoop down!” said the young man. The genie bowed low, and the young man, to my surprise, reached up and pulled from the back of his head, at the neck, ten long hairs, one by one. “Away!” cried the one-armed youth. _The Genie Flies Away With the Witch_ The genie stood up, and opening his great mouth in a silent laugh, stamped upon the earth so that it shook, and leaped straight up. He rose in the air in a wide curve; and before we could blink again he was gone like an arrow over the treetops, with the witch under his arm, and was no more than a speck in the evening sky. The young man tucked the ten hairs away inside his gown. “Now,” said he, “_she’s_ gone. And good riddance, too, I should say.” “Sir,” said I to him, “will you tell us who you are, and what brings you here?” “I am a sorcerer,” said he, “and I dwell in an island far out in the Great Sea. I am known there as the One-Armed Sorcerer. I came here, with the genie whom I command by virtue of a ring of his hair, in order to prove my skill against the witch. I undertook to release our good friend the Highwayman and his ten fair daughters, but I am bound to say that I managed it badly; so badly that the witch got the genie’s hair away from me, and by means of that hair turned him into a dog and shut me up inside the wasp’s nest. And all because I didn’t know the rule, that you mustn’t speak before you’re spoken to.” “A pretty good rule,” said I, “but if everybody observed it, who would ever talk?” “Well, anyway,” said the One-Armed Sorcerer, “here I have ten buttons, and here I have ten threads from the genie’s head. I propose to make you a doublet, sir; a magic doublet; and for the cloth, the wasp’s nest will be the very thing. It will be a doublet worth having; and to you, sir, who have so nobly preserved us all, I will present it on--er--ahem!--on your wedding day.” “Hurrah!” piped up the elderly Highwayman, and the lady on my arm blushed. “Oh, isn’t that sweet of him?” cried her nine sisters. “Isn’t it just too sweet for anything? It’s really the sweetest thing, now isn’t it? Too perfectly sweet for words, it is, really!” The One-Armed Sorcerer, stepping over to the wasp’s nest, pulled it down from the tree without breaking it, and slung it on his back.