“When the beautiful Princess Alicia consents to partake of the salmon- as I think she will- you will find she will leave a fish-bone on her plate. Tell her to dry it, and to rub it, and to polish it till it shines like mother-of-pearl, and to take care of it as a present from me.”
“So she took out of her pocket the magic fish-bone that had been dried and rubbed and polished till it shone like mother-of-pearl; and gave it one little kiss and wished it was quarter day.”
“They were all rather big pearls, but no one really minds a pearl being big, and soon the pearl-divers had a pile of wet and shining jewels by the water-side. The worst of it was that as soon as the stones were dry- and they dried quickly in the sun- they stopped shining, and could not be counted as pearls anymore.”