The poor old man felt sorry for the fish if they had to be under her rule, for prosperity had quite spoiled her. However, he dared not disobey, and once more summoned his powerful friend.
"Make your wife the Queen of the Waters?" exclaimed the Gold Fish. "That is the last thing I should do. She is unfit to reign, for she cannot rule herself or her desires. I shall make her once more a poor old woman. Adieu! You will see me no more."
The old man returned sorrowfully with this unpleasant message, to find the palace transformed into a humble cabin, and his wife in a skirt of threadbare stuff in place of the rich brocade which she had worn of late. She was sad and humble, and much more easy to live with than she had been before. Her husband therefore had occasion many times to think gratefully of the Gold Fish, and sometimes when drawing up his net the glint of the sun upon the scales of his captives would give him a moment's hope-which, alas! was as often disappointed-that once again he was to see his benefactor.

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