So when Jack returned he asked his father's leave to marry the girl. “Never till you have the money to keep her,” was the reply. “I have that, father,” said the lad, and going to the ass he pulled its long ears; well, he pulled, and he pulled, till one of them came off in his hands; but Neddy, though he hee-hawed and he hee-hawed let fall no half-crowns or guineas. Then the father picked up a hayfork and beat his son out of the house. I promise you he ran; he ran and ran till he came bang against a door, and burst it open, and there he was in a joiner's shop. “You're a likely lad,” said the joiner; “serve me for a twelvemonths and a day and I will pay you well.” So he agreed, and served the carpenter for a year and a day. “Now,” said the master, “I will give you your wage”; and he presented him with a table, telling him he had but to say, “Table, be covered,” and at once it would be spread with lots to eat and drink. Jack hitched the table on his back, and away he went with it till he came to the inn. “Well, host,” shouted he, putting down the table, “my dinner to-day, and that of the best.” “Very sorry, sir,” says the host, “but there is nothing in the house but ham and eggs.” “No ham and eggs for me!” exclaimed Jack. “I can do better than that. Come, my table, be covered!” So at once the table was spread with turkey and sausages, roast mutton, potatoes, and greens. The innkeeper opened his eyes, but he said nothing, not he! But that night he fetched down from his attic a table very like the magic one, and exchanged the two, and Jack, none the wiser, next morning hitched the worthless table on to his back and carried it home.
“Now, father, may I marry my lass?” he asked. “Not unless you can keep her,” replied the father. “Look here!” exclaimed Jack. “Father, I have a table which does all my bidding.” “Let me see it,” said the old man. The lad set it in the middle of the room, and bade it be covered; but all in vain, the table remained bare. Then in a rage, the father caught the warming pan down from the wall and warmed his son's back with it so that the boy fled howling from the house, and ran and ran till he came to a river and tumbled in. A man picked him out and bade him help in making a bridge over the river by casting a tree across. Then Jack climbed up to the top of the tree and threw his weight on it, so that when the man had rooted the tree up, Jack and the tree-head dropped on the farther bank. “Thank you,” said the man; “and now for what you have done I will pay you”; so saying, he tore a branch from the tree, and fettled it up into a club with his knife. “There,” exclaimed he; “take this stick, and when you say to it, 'Up, stick, and bang him,' it will knock any one down who angers you.” The lad was overjoyed to get this stick, for he had begun to see he had been tricked by the innkeeper, so away he went with it to the inn, and as soon as the man appeared he cried: “Up, stick, and bang him!” At the word the cudgel flew from his hand and battered the old fellow on the back, rapped his head, bruised his arms, tickled his ribs, till he fell groaning on the floor; and still the stick belabored the prostrate man, nor would Jack call it off till he had got back the stolen ass and table.
موضوع: So when Jack 