Finally the Mayor called a meeting of the Aldermen, and they all assembled in the City Hall.  Nearly every one of them had a son or a daughter who was a chimney-sweep, or a little watch-girl, or a shepherdess.  They appointed a chairman and they took a great many votes and contrary votes but they did not agree on anything, until every one proposed that they consult the Wise Woman.  Then they all held up their hands, and voted to, unanimously.

So the whole board of Aldermen set out, walking by twos, with the Mayor at their head, to consult the Wise Woman.  The Aldermen were all very fleshy, and carried gold-headed canes which they swung very high at every step.  They held their heads well back, and their chins stiff, and whenever they met common people they sniffed gently.  They were very imposing.

The Wise Woman lived in a little hut on the outskirts of the city.  She kept a Black Cat, except for her, she was all alone.  She was very old, and had brought up a great many children, and she was considered remarkably wise.

But when the Aldermen reached her hut and found her seated by the fire, holding her Black Cat, a new difficulty presented itself.  She had always been quite deaf and people had been obliged to scream as loud as they could in order to make her hear; but lately she had grown much deafer, and when the Aldermen attempted to lay the case before her she could not hear a word.  In fact, she was so very deaf that she could not distinguish a tone below G-sharp.  The Aldermen screamed till they were quite red in the faces, but all to no purpose:  none of them could get up to G-sharp of course.

So the Aldermen all went back, swinging their gold-headed canes, and they had another meeting in the City Hall.  Then they decided to send the highest Soprano Singer in the church choir to the Wise Woman; she could sing up to G-sharp just as easy as not.  So the high Soprano Singer set out for the Wise Woman’s in the Mayor’s coach, and the Aldermen marched behind, swinging their gold-headed canes.

The High Soprano Singer put her head down close to the Wise Woman’s ear, and sung all about the Christmas Masquerade and the dreadful dilemma everybody was in, in G-sharp—­she even went higher, sometimes, and the Wise Woman heard every word.

She nodded three times, and every time she nodded she looked wiser.

“Go home, and give ’em a spoonful of castor-oil, all ’round,” she piped up; then she took a pinch of snuff, and wouldn’t say any more.

So the Aldermen went home, and every one took a district and marched through it, with a servant carrying an immense bowl and spoon, and every child had to take a dose of castor-oil.

But it didn’t do a bit of good.  The children cried and struggled when they were forced to take the castor-oil; but, two minutes afterward, the chimney-sweeps were crying for their brooms, and the princesses screaming because they couldn’t go to court, and the Mayor’s daughter, who had been given a double dose, cried louder and more sturdily:  “I want to go and tend my geese.  I will go and tend my geese.”