“Good news!” they were shouting. “We’re going to marry! She’s promised! She’ll marry the one you choose, tra la! She’ll marry the one you choose!” _The Three Blind Ballad Singers Once More_ They began to sing, at the top of their voices. I started in surprise. It was the three blind ballad singers. “O-o-oh!” they sang: “She wanted to marry us all, she said, But that wouldn’t do, no never, No never, no never, no, no! From suitors a dozen, Not counting a cousin And two or three uncles or so, She’d freely and frankly, firmly and fairly, Flatly and finally fled! For never a one could sing, not one, Not a line, not a note, not a thing, not one, And she, she said, if she must be wed, A singer she’d have, or she’d have none, For really she’d almost rather be dead If she couldn’t be uninterruptedly fed On an endless tonic Of scales harmonic In every possible key, An infinite series, never finished, Of chords with all the sevenths diminished, And all the intervals less than minor,-- Surely nothing could be diviner, Nothing! nothing at all, said she: And after breakfast a quaver hemi, And after dinner a quaver demi, And after supper a quaver semi, And in between, for ever and ever, Every possible kind of shake! The fact of the matter is, you see, She’d made up her mind, beyond mistake, To offer her hand to one of we! But which should it be? Which one of the three? And what of the two who would have to go? What about them? she said; that’s it! She didn’t approve the idea a bit. Those other two she could never forget,-- Just think of them out in the cold and wet! Just think of their terrible, terrible woe! She wanted to marry, and yet, and yet, She’d never be happy, no never, No never, no never, no, no!” “Silence, fools,” said Babadag, laughing. “We are about to listen to a tale,--a tale from Bald-er-Dash the peddler. Will you proceed now, excellent peddler?” “Willingly,” said I. At the sound of my voice, the three blind men cried out “Aha!” and broke into a fresh song: “The peddler and the peddler’s maid, oh fair as milk was she, And she promised on her honor she would marry one of three,--” “Silence, rascals!” said Babadag. I was becoming, all this while, more and more restless, for I had no doubt that all this talk of marriage had reference to my own daughter. I wondered bitterly what mischief she had been up to during my absence. “These rascals,” said Babadag, still laughing, “sometimes I am minded to put them to death. I don’t know really why I let them live. Now then, excellent one, let us hear the tale.” I bowed, and while the repast proceeded, and the three ballad singers remained standing behind our chairs, I related to Babadag, as follows, THE STORY OF NOBBUD BALD-ER-DASH THE PEDDLER