So the Tsars and Tsarévichi, the Kings and Korolévichi, were turning back, when the master came to meet them and said: “Oh ye good folk, one of my ducks has gone: has any one of you taken it?”

“Why are you making a vain quest?” the Tsars and Tsarévichi, the Kings and Korolévichi answered; “this would be an unguestly act. Search us all over. If you find the duck on any one of us do with him what you will; if you do not, let your own head pay for it.”

“I will,” said the master. And he placed them all in a row and searched them; and, as soon as he had come to the father of the Tsarévna, he said quietly:

“At the pike’s good pleasure,

At God’s good measure⁠—