he did drink, and it was not long before he fell fast asleep.
Then the woman fetched from her kitchen a basket, so like the
magic one that no one, without looking very closely, could tell
the difference, and placed it in Father Grumbler's hand, while
she hid the other carefully away.

It was dinner time when the man awoke, and, jumping up hastily,
he set out for home, where he found all the children gathered
round a basin of thin soup, and pushing their wooden bowls
forward, hoping to have the first spoonful. Their father burst
into the midst of them, bearing his basket, and crying:

'Don't spoil your appetites, children, with that stuff. Do you
see this basket? Well, I have only got to say, "Little basket,
little basket, do your duty," and you will see what will happen.
Now you shall say it instead of me, for a treat.'

The children, wondering and delighted, repeated the words, but
nothing happened. Again and again they tried, but the basket was
only a basket, with a few scales of fish sticking to the bottom,
for the innkeeper's wife had taken it to market the day before.

'What is the matter with the thing?' cried the father at last,
snatching the basket from them, and turning it all over,
grumbling and swearing while he did so, under the eyes of his
astonished wife and children, who did not know whether to cry or
to laugh.

'It certainly smells of fish,' he said, and then he stopped, for
a sudden thought had come to him.