"Let me see it," said the old man.

The lad set it in the middle of the room, and bade it be covered; but
all in vain, the table remained bare. In a rage, the father caught the
warming-pan down from the wall and warmed his son's back with it so
that the boy fled howling from the house, and ran and ran till he came
to a river and tumbled in. A man picked him out and bade him assist
him in making a bridge over the river; and how do you think he was
doing it? Why, by casting a tree across; so Jack climbed up to the top
of the tree and threw his weight on it, so that when the man had
rooted the tree up, Jack and the tree-head dropped on the farther
bank.

"Thank you," said the man; "and now for what you have done I will pay
you;" so saying, he tore a branch from the tree, and fettled it up
into a club with his knife. "There," exclaimed he; "take this stick,
and when you say to it, 'Up stick and bang him,' it will knock any one
down who angers you."

The lad was overjoyed to get this stick--so away he went with it to
the inn, and as soon as the publican, appeared, "Up stick and bang
him!" was his cry. At the word the cudgel flew from his hand and
battered the old publican on the back, rapped his head, bruised his
arms tickled his ribs, till he fell groaning on the floor; still the
stick belaboured the prostrate man, nor would Jack call it off till he
had got back the stolen ass and table. Then he galloped home on the
ass, with the table on his shoulders, and the stick in his hand. When
he arrived there he found his father was dead, so he brought his ass
into the stable, and pulled its ears till he had filled the manger