'You may have two wishes,' said the old witch, 'a one and a two.' And she said the spell that undid the secret of the Pot to the wisher.
Then Tulip bent down his head and looked in, counting softly to himself, and at ten, he let the wish go to his lady of the dear green feet.
The colours changed and sprang, as though stirred and fed with fresh fuel; and down in the depths of the Wishing-Pot he saw the feet of his Beloved go by in twinkling green slippers.
As soon as he saw that he began counting ten in great haste for the second wish. 'O to be inside the Wishing-Pot with her!' was his thought now. He had got to nine, and the wish was almost on his tongue, when he caught sight of the old woman's eye looking at him. And the eye had become like a large green spider, with great long limbs that kept clutching up and out again!
His heart queegled to a jelly at the sight; but the green feet lured him so, that he still thought how to get to them and yet be safe. Surely, to be in the Wishing-Pot and out by the sound of the next Angelus became the shape of his wish. He shut his eyes, cried ten upon the venture, and was in the Wishing-Pot!
The little green feet were trebling over the glass with a sound like running water; and he himself began running at full speed, shot off into the Wishing-Pot like a pellet from a pop-gun. Nothing could he see of his dear but her wee green feet. But above them as they ran he heard showery laughter, and he knew that his lady was there before him, though invisible to the eye.
The Pot, now he was in it, seemed bigger than the biggest dome in the world; to run all round it took him two or three minutes. Away in the centre of its base stood a great opal knob, like the axle to a wheel round which he and the green feet kept circling.
However much he wished and wished, the green feet still kept their distance, for now he was _in_ the Wishing-Pot wishes availed him nothing. The green feet flew faster than his; the light laugh rang further and further away; right across to the other side of the hall his lady had passed from him now.
The magic fires of the crystal leapt and crackled under his tread; now it seemed as if his feet ran on a green lawn, out of which broke crocuses and daffodils, and now roses reddened in the track, and now the purple of grapes spurted across the path like spilled wine. The sound of the green feet and the running of overhead laughter, as they distanced him in front, came nearer and nearer behind him from across the hall. He felt that he must follow and not turn, however beaten he might be.