` Oh , if you can only do that , ' cried the king , ' I shall be grateful to you for life ! Give your own orders ; they shall be obeyed . ' ` Then let your majesty bid the royal shoemaker make you a shoe of goat-skin very loose and comfortable , while I prepare a varnish to paint over it of which I alone have the secret ! ' So saying , the doctor bowed himself out , leaving the king more cheerful and hopeful than he had been for long . The days passed very slowly with him during the making of the shoe and the preparation of the varnish , but on the eighth morning the physician appeared , bringing with him the shoe in a case . He drew it out to slip on the king 's foot , and over the goat-skin he had rubbed a polish so white that the snow itself was not more dazzling . ` While you wear this shoe you will not feel the slightest pain , ' said the doctor . ` For the balsam with which I have rubbed it inside and out has , besides its healing balm , the quality of strengthening the material it touches , so that , even were your majesty to live a thousand years , you would find the slipper just as fresh at the end of that time as it is now . ' The king was so eager to put it on that he hardly gave the physician time to finish . He snatched it from the case and thrust his foot into it , nearly weeping for joy when he found he could walk and run as easily as any beggar boy . ` What can I give you ? ' he cried , holding out both hands to the man who had worked this wonder . ` Stay with me , and I will heap on you riches greater than ever you dreamed of . ' But the doctor said he would accept nothing more than had been agreed on , and must return at once to his own country , where many sick people were awaiting him . So king Balancin had to content himself with ordering the physician to be treated with royal honours , and desiring that an escort should attend him on his journey home . For two years everything went smoothly at court , and to king Balancin and his daughter the sun no sooner rose than it seemed time for it to set . Now , the king 's birthday fell in the month of June , and as the weather happened to be unusually fine , he told the princess to celebrate it in any way that pleased her . Diamantina was very fond of being on the river , and she was delighted at this chance of delighting her tastes . She would have a merry-making such as never had been seen before , and in the evening , when they were tired of sailing and rowing , there should be music and dancing , plays and fireworks . At the very end , before the people went home , every poor person should be given a loaf of bread and every girl who was to be married within the year a new dress .
The great day appeared to XXXXX to be long in coming , but , like other days , it came at last .
Balancin Diamantina balm balsam days goat-skin honours morning shoemaker years