near being caught. He came running out with it, laughing his best. "Have you got it?" Jack said to him. He said: "Yes;" and off they went back again, and left the castle behind.
As they were all of them (Jack, mouse, frog, and eagle) passing over the great sea, they fell to quarrelling about which it was that got the little box, till down it slipped into the water. (It was by their looking at it and handing it from one hand to the other that they dropped the little box to the bottom of the sea.) "Well, well," said the frog, "I knew that I would have to do something, so you had better let me go down in the water." And they let him go, and he was down for three days and three nights; and up he comes, and shows his nose and little mouth out of the water; and all of them asked him. Did he get it? and he told them, No. "Well, what are you doing there, then?" "Nothing at all," he said, "only I want my full breath;" and the poor little frog went down the second time, and he was down for a day and a night, and up he brings it.
And away they did go, after being there four days and nights; and after a long tug over seas and mountains, arrived at the palace of the old King, who is the master of all the birds in the world. And the King was very proud to see them, and had a hearty welcome and a long conversation. Jack opened the little box, and told the little men to go back and to bring the castle here to them; "and all of you make as much haste back again as you possibly can."
The three little men went off; and when they came
