"Whatever are you laughing at?"

 "Oh," replied the old man, holding his sides, "I am so amused!" Then he went on laughing. He laughed so much indeed that the tears came into his eyes and he nearly choked. His wife had to pat his back and give him a drink of water to put him right. 

 Then he told her what had happened. How he had put a hen in his bag, how the red policeman had run after him, how he dropped the bag and let the policeman catch him, and how when the policeman took him back to the bag, the hen was gone. 

 "Did she open the bag and fly away?" said the old woman. 

 "No," said the old man. "She got out through that hole in the corner." 

 "Ah," said the old woman, "I must sew up that hole." 

 And she took the bag down from its nail and sewed up the hole. For she was a very neat woman and she did not like to see holes in bags. 

 She took the bag down and sewed up the hole.

 CHAPTER III. 

 The next day was market day. On market day people who have butter or cheese to sell take it into the market to sell it. And people who have money and happen to want butter or cheese go into the market to buy it. The old man's wife had nothing to sell. Neither had she any money. But she wanted some butter very badly. So she took the old man's bag off the nail and carried it to market. She walked round the market with the bag under her arm and looked at all the stalls and enquired how much the strawberries were a pound; but she did not buy anything because she had no money. In a little while she came to a stall on which there were six rolls of fine fresh butter, and in front of them was a card on which the man who brought the butter to market had written— 

  Butter is Cheap To-Day.  

 Butter is Cheap To-Day. 

 "Butter is cheap to-day!"

 "I am glad butter is cheap to-day," said the old woman to herself, and when the man who had brought the butter to market was not looking she picked up a roll and dropped it into her bag. Then she ran away as fast as she could. 

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