“‘Yes, it happened to me in my youth, when I lived in a family where the furniture was polished, the floors scoured, and new curtains were put up every fortnight.’ “‘What an interesting way you have of telling a story!’ said the Carpet Broom. ‘One can tell directly that a man is speaking who has been in woman’s society. There’s something pure runs through it.’ “And the Pot went on telling the story, and the end was as good as the beginning. “All the Plates rattled with joy, and the Carpet Broom brought some green parsley out of the dust hole, and put it like a wreath on the Pot, for he knew that it would vex the others. ‘If I crown him to-day,’ it thought, ‘he will crown me tomorrow.’ “‘Now I’ll dance,’ said the Fire Tongs; and they danced. Preserve us! how that implement could lift up one leg! The old chair-cushion burst to see it. ‘Shall I be crowned too?’ thought the Tongs; and indeed a wreath was awarded. “‘They’re only common people, after all!’ thought the Matches. “Now the Tea Urn was to sing; but she said she had taken cold and could not sing unless she felt boiling within. But that was only affectation: she did not want to sing, except when she was in the parlor with the grand people. “In the window sat an old Quill Pen, with which the maid generally wrote: there was nothing remarkable about this pen, except that it had been dipped too deep into the ink, but she was proud of that. ‘If the Tea Urn won’t sing,’ she said, ‘she may leave it alone. Outside hangs a nightingale in a cage, and he can sing. He hasn’t had any education, but this evening we’ll say nothing about that.’ “‘I think it very wrong,’ said the Teakettle—he was the kitchen singer, and half brother to the Tea Urn—‘that that rich and foreign bird should be listened to. Is that patriotic? Let the Market Basket decide.’ “‘I am vexed,’ said the Market Basket. ‘No one can imagine how much I am secretly vexed. Is that a proper way of spending the evening? Would it not be more sensible to put the house in order? Let each one go to his own place, and I will arrange the whole game. That would be quite another thing.’ ‘Yes, let us make a disturbance, cried they all. Then the door opened, and the maid came in, and they all stood still; not one stirred. But there was not one pot among them who did not know what he could do and how grand he was. ‘Yes, if I had liked,’ each one thought, ‘it might have been a very merry evening.’ “The servant girl took the Matches and lighted the fire with them. mercy! how they sputtered and burst out into flame! ‘Now everyone can see,’ thought they, ‘that we are the first. How we shine! what a light!’—and they burned out.” “That was a capital story,” said the Sultana. “I feel myself quite carried away to the kitchen, to the Matches. Yes, now thou shalt marry our daughter.” “Yes, certainly,” said the Sultan, “thou shalt marry our daughter on Monday.” And they called him thou, because he was to belong to the family.