Scene II—Ogre’s Kitchen
Reading edition
Ogre. You are a good cook; but you use more rice than you need. You should put but one grain into the pot.
Sanja. One grain? Tee-hee-hee. 156How could any one live on one grain of rice?
Ogre. I will show you. Put one grain of rice into the pot. Then take this paddle in your hand. If you want rice for ten persons, stir ten times, in this way. [Stirs paddle about in the water.] See the grain of rice burst into ten pieces. If you want rice for one hundred persons, stir one hundred times. The grain of rice will burst into one hundred pieces.
Sanja. Tee-hee-hee! Tee-hee-hee!
Ogre. This is a magic paddle.
Sanja. Tee-hee-hee! Tee-hee-hee!
Ogre. [To himself.] How strange that she laughs at everything.
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