father's words, but he thought to himself, 'What is done cannot
be undone,' and answered, 'Very well, so let it be.'

Then the beardless one got up, threw the flour into the tub, and
made a hole in the middle, telling the boy to fetch some water
from the river in his two hands, to mix the cake. When the cake
was ready for baking they put it on the fire, and covered it with
hot ashes, till it was cooked through. Then they leaned it up
against the wall, for it was too big to go into a cupboard, and
the beardless one said to the boy:

'Look here, sonny: if we share this cake we shall neither of us
have enough. Let us see who can tell the biggest lie, and the
one who lies the best shall have the whole cake.'

The boy, not knowing what else to do, answered, 'All right; you
begin.'

So the beardless one began to lie with all his might, and when he
was tired of inventing new lies the boy said to him, 'My good
fellow, if THAT is all you can do it is not much! Listen to me,
and I will tell you a true story.

'In my youth, when I was an old man, we had a quantity of
beehives. Every morning when I got up I counted them over, and
it was quite easy to number the bees, but I never could reckon
the hives properly. One day, as I was counting the bees, I
discovered that my best bee was missing, and without losing a
moment I saddled a cock and went out to look for him. I traced
him as far as the shore, and knew that he had crossed the sea,