FAIRY TALES 211

alone. He had not gone far, when suddenly he came upon three robbers, who were so busy talking that they did not see him until he was close beside them. They seemed to be quarrel- ling; so the prince went up to them and said:

“What is the trouble? Why do you dis- pute?”

“We have robbed a man of a coat, a pair of shoes and a sword,” they answered. “The coat can make the wearer invisible; the shoes will take him wherever he wishes to go, with the greatest swiftness; and the sword will do what- ever the owner commands it to do. We cannot agree how they should be divided. That is why we dispute.”

‘ ‘Why, let me decide that for you,” the prince replied. “I am sure I can do it fairly.”

The robbers were quite Willing to let the prince decide how the coat and the shoes and the sword should be divided; so the prince said,

“Now all of you stand with your backs to me, one in front of the other. Stand there quietly until sunset and then turn around. I shall have your question decided by that time.”

As soon as the robbers had placed themselves as he had directed,——one in front of the other, with their backs turned to him—the prince quickly took off his coat, and slipped on the magical coat; and then he found that what the robbers had said was true—he had become in-