"But how can I marry you?" said the princess, "without seeing
you?"

"You shall see me," said the soldier, "all in good time. Three
days from now I will come again, and will show myself to you, but
just now it cannot be. But if I come, will you marry me?"

"Yes I will," said the princess, "for I like the way you
talk--that I do!"

Thereupon the soldier kissed her and said good-bye, and then
stepped out of the window as he had stepped in. He sat him down
upon his three-legged stool. "I wish," said he, "to be carried to
such and such a tavern." For he had been in that town before, and
knew the places where good living was to be had.

Whir! whiz! away flew the stool as high and higher than it had
flown before, and then down it came again, and down and down
until it lit as light as a feather in the street before the
tavern door. The soldier tucked his feather cap in his pocket,
and the three-legged stool under his arm, and in he went and
ordered a pot of beer and some white bread and cheese.

Meantime, at the king's palace was such a gossiping and such a
hubbub as had not been heard there for many a day; for the pretty
princess was not slow in telling how the invisible King of the
Wind had come and asked her to marry him; and some said it was
true and some said it was not true, and everybody wondered and
talked, and told their own notions of the matter. But all agreed