The reply of the Tsaritza came quickly upon this boast. "If you can do everything, make me a wedding robe embroidered with gold and ornamented with diamonds and precious stones, which will fit my body as exactly as these shoes fit my feet. Let it be ready by to-morrow morning, for, if it is not, off goes your head." The face of the shoemaker fell, and he went out into the street and walked a long, long way thinking very hard. "Well, well," he said at last, "it is of no use mourning. To-day will be my last day, that is quite certain, and I may as well spend it in jollification. For though a shoemaker may by great industry make a wonderful pair of shoes, he cannot make a wonderful wedding robe for a beautiful Tsaritza without measurements, to say nothing of trying on." Then he went off to the inn, where he found his companions, who seemed to live there. "Well, what is wrong now?" they asked him as soon as they saw his gloomy face. "Nothing but contradiction," he said. "My high-born patron has now made me Court Dressmaker and has ordered me to make her a wedding-robe embroidered with gold and ornamented with diamonds and precious stones, which will fit her body as exactly as my shoes fit her feet, and the whole contraption is to be ready by to-morrow morning, for, if it is not, off goes my head." "Ah, brother," said the loafers, "it is clearly impossible that you should execute the order, and as we suppose you have the stones on your person we may as well go and frolic for to-day." The face of the shoemaker fell still lower, for in his consternation he had forgotten to ask for the jewels from the royal treasury. But he had in his pocket the large price paid for the shoes, and, as his previous score was paid, the inn-keeper allowed the topers to have a good supply of spirits. Once more they caroused and once more the shoemaker-dressmaker took a keg of spirits home with him and told Ivan all his tale, concluding with the words, "Wake me in the morning. I'm off to bed." In a few minutes he was sound asleep. Ivan at once blew the whistle, and Lame and Crooked appeared before him. "What is your pleasure?" "Make me a robe which will fit Elena the Beautiful to perfection. Let it be embroidered with gold and ornamented with diamonds and precious stones, and deliver it here before dawn." "We obey," said Lame and Crooked. "The wedding robe shall be ready." Ivan slept and woke before dawn. He knew at once that the light in his chamber came from the shining gems on the bodice of the beautiful robe which lay across a chair by his bedside. He jumped up, dressed himself quickly, and taking up the dress kissed the corsage where the heart of Elena would beat, and carried the wonderful garment to the chamber of his snoring master.