understand."

As he spoke these words he got up from the table and went straight to
the bed.

"Ah!" said he, "that is how you would cheat me; I know not why I do not
eat you, too; it is well for you that you are tough. Here is game, which
comes very luckily to entertain three Ogres of my acquaintance who are
to pay me a visit in a day or two."

He dragged them out from under the bed, one by one. The poor children
fell upon their knees and begged his pardon, but they had to do with one
of the most cruel of Ogres, who, far from having any pity on them, was
already devouring them in his mind, and told his wife they would be
delicate eating when she had made a good sauce.

He then took a great knife, and, coming up to these poor children,
sharpened it upon a great whetstone which he held in his left hand. He
had already taken hold of one of them when his wife said to him:--

"What need you do it now? Will you not have time enough to-morrow?"

"Hold your prating," said the Ogre; "they will eat the tenderer."

"But you have so much meat already," replied his wife; "here are a calf,
two sheep, and half a pig."

"That is true," said the Ogre; "give them a good supper that they may
not grow thin, and put them to bed."