“But, my good man, it was only yesterday that I gave you a handsome present.” “Yes, Holy Man, and here it is. But something has happened, I don’t know what, and it won’t work any more.” “Well, put it down. I will go and see if I can find anything for you.” In a few minutes the Holy Man returned with a cock under his arm. “Listen to me,” he said, “whenever you want money, you only have to say: ‘Show me what you can do, cock,’ and you will see some wonderful things. But, remember, it is not necessary to let all the world into the secret.” “Oh no, Holy Man, I am not so foolish as that.” “Nor to tell everybody that I gave it to you,” went on the Holy Man. “I have not got these treasures by the dozen.” And without waiting for an answer he shut the door. As before, the distance seemed to have wonderfully shortened, and in a moment the tavern rose up in front of Father Grumbler. Without stopping to think, he went straight in, and found the innkeeper’s wife in the kitchen making a cake. “Where have you come from, with that fine red cock in your basket,” asked she, for the bird was so big that the lid would not shut down properly. “Oh, I come from a place where they don’t keep these things by the dozen,” he replied, sitting down in front of the table. The woman said no more, but set before him a bottle of his favourite wine, and soon he began to wish to display his prize. “Show me what you can do, cock,” cried he. And the cock stood up and flapped his wings three times, crowing “coquerico” with a voice like a trumpet, and at each crow there fell from his beak golden drops, and diamonds as large as peas. This time Father Grumbler did not invite the innkeeper’s wife to pick up his treasures, but put his own hat under the cock’s beak, so as to catch everything he let fall; and he did not see the husband and wife exchanging glances with each other which said, “That would be a splendid cock to put with our basket.” “Have another glass of wine?” suggested the innkeeper, when they had finished admiring the beauty of the cock, for they pretended not to have seen the gold or the diamonds. And Father Grumbler, nothing loth, drank one glass after another, till his head fell forward on the table, and once more he was sound asleep. Then the woman gently coaxed the cock from the basket and carried it off to her own poultry yard, from which she brought one exactly like it, and popped it in its place. Night was falling when the man awoke, and throwing proudly some grains of gold on the table to pay for the wine he had drunk, he tucked the cock comfortably into his basket and set out for home. His wife and all the children were waiting for him at the door, and as soon as she caught sight of him she broke out: “You are a nice man to go wasting your time and your money drinking in that tavern, and leaving us to starve! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”