“Now, father, may I marry my lass?” he asked.

“Not unless you can keep her,” replied the father.

“Look here!” exclaimed Jack.  “Father, I have a table which does all my bidding.”

“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.  Then, 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 help in making a bridge over the river by casting a tree across.  Then 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.

[Illustration:  The fisherman and his wife had no children, and they were just longing for a baby]

“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, for he had begun to see he had been tricked by the innkeeper, so away he went with it to the inn, and as soon as the man appeared he cried: 

“Up, stick, and bang him!”

At the word the cudgel flew from his hand and battered the old fellow on the back, rapped his head, bruised his arms, tickled his ribs, till he fell groaning on the floor; and 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 with money.

It was soon known through the town that Jack had returned rolling in wealth, and accordingly all the girls in the place set their caps at him.

“Now,” said Jack, “I shall marry the richest lass in the place; so to-morrow do you all come in front of my house with your money in your aprons.”

Next morning the street was full of girls with aprons held out, and gold and silver in them; but Jack’s own sweetheart was among them, and she had neither gold nor silver; nought but two copper pennies, that was all she had.

“Stand aside, lass,” said Jack to her, speaking roughly.  “Thou hast no silver nor gold—­stand off from the rest.”  She obeyed, and the tears ran down her cheeks, and filled her apron with diamonds.

“Up, stick, and bang them!” exclaimed Jack; whereupon the cudgel leaped up, and running along the line of girls, knocked them all on the heads and left them senseless on the pavement.  Jack took all their money and poured it into his true-love’s lap.  “Now, lass,” he exclaimed, “thou art the richest, and I shall marry thee.”