"Very well," said the princess, "then let me see you change
yourself into a lion. If you can do that I may perhaps believe
you to be as great as my husband."

"It shall," said the magician, "be as you say. He began to mutter
spells and strange words, and then all of a sudden he was gone,
and in his place there stood a lion with bristling mane and
flaming eyes--a sight fit of itself to kill a body with terror.

"That will do!" cried the princess, quaking and trembling at the
sight, and thereupon the magician took his own shape again.

"Now," said he, "do you believe that I am as great as the poor
soldier?"

"Not yet," said the princess; "I have seen how big you can make
yourself, now I wish to see how little you can become. Let me see
you change yourself into a mouse."

"So be it," said the magician, and began again to mutter his
spells. Then all of a sudden he was gone just as he was gone
before, and in his place was a little mouse sitting up and
looking at the princess with a pair of eyes like glass beads.

But he did not sit there long. This was what the soldier had
planned for, and all the while he had been standing by with his
feather hat upon his head. Up he raised his foot, and down he set
it upon the mouse.

Crunch!--that was an end of the magician.