LITMIR.BIZ

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must not despise your trade; your father and grandfather were honest people, Peter Munk, and they carried on the same trade. Let me not suppose it is love of idleness that brings you to me."

      Peter was startled at the gravity of the little man, and blushed. "No, Mr. Schatzhauser," said he; "idleness is the root of every vice, but you cannot blame me, if another condition pleases me better than my own. A charcoal-burner is, in truth, a very mean personage in this world; the glass manufacturer, the raftsmen, and clock-makers, are people much more looked upon."

      "Pride will have a fall," answered the little man of the pine wood, rather more kindly. "What a singular race you are, you men! It is but rarely that one is contented with the condition in which he was born and bred, and I would lay a wager that if you were a glass-manufacturer, you would wish to be a timber-merchant, and if you were a timber-merchant you would take a fancy to the ranger's place, or the residence of the bailiff. But no matter for that; if you promise to work hard, I will get you something better to do. It is my practice to grant three wishes to those born on a Sunday, who know how to find me out. The first two are quite free from any condition, the third I may refuse, should it be a foolish one. Now, therefore, Peter, say your wishes; but mind you wish something good and useful."

      "Hurrah!" shouted Peter; "you are a capital glass-mannikin, and justly do people call you the treasure-keeper, for treasures seem to be plentiful with you. Well then, since I may wish what my heart desires, my first wish is that I may be able to dance better than the king of the ball-room, and to have always as much money in my pocket as fat Hezekiel."

      "You fool!" replied the little man, angrily, "what a paltry wish is this, to be able to dance well and to have money for gambling. Are you not ashamed of this silly wish, you blockish Peter? Would you cheat yourself out of good fortune? What good will you and your poor mother reap from your dancing well? What use will money be to you, which according to your wish is only for the public-house, thereto be spent like that of the wretched king of the ball-room? And then you will have nothing for the whole week and starve. Another wish is now left free to you; but have a care to desire something more rational."

      Peter scratched himself behind his ears, and said, after some hesitation, "Now I wish the finest and richest glass-factory in the Schwarzwald, with every thing appertaining to it, and money to carry it on."

      "Is that all?" asked the little man, with a look of anxiety; "is there nothing else, Peter?"

      "Why you might add a horse and chaise."

      "Oh, you stupid Peter!" cried the little man, while he flung his glass pipe against a thick pine so that it broke in a hundred pieces. "Horses? a carriage? Sense, I tell you, sense—common sense and judgment you ought to have wished, but not a horse and chaise. Come, come, don't be so sad, we will do all we can to make it turn out for the best, even as it is, for the second wish is on the whole not altogether foolish. A good glass-factory will support its man; but you ought to have wished judgment and sense in addition; a horse and chaise would come as a matter of course."

      "But, Mr. Schatzhauser," replied Peter, "I have another wish left, and might very well wish sense, if I am so much in need of it, as you seem to think."

      "Say no more about it. You will get involved in many an embarrassment yet, when you will be glad of being at liberty to obtain your third wish. And now proceed on your way home." Drawing a small bag from his pocket, he said: "There are two thousand florins; let that be enough, and don't come again asking for money, for, if you do, I must hang you up to the highest pine. That is the way I have always acted, ever since I have lived in the forest. Three days ago old Winkfritz died, who had a large glass-factory in the Unterwald. Go there to-morrow morning, and make a fair offer for it. Look well to yourself. Be prudent and be industrious; I will come to see you from time to time, and assist you with word and deed, since you have not wished for common sense. But I must repeat it seriously; your first wish was evil. Guard against frequenting the public-house, Peter, no one who did so, ever prospered long." The little man, while thus talking to him, had taken a new pipe, of the most beautiful glass, from his pocket, charged it with dry fir-apples, and stuck it into his little toothless mouth. Then drawing out a large burning-glass, he stepped into the sun and lighted it. When he had done this, he kindly offered his hand to Peter, added a few more words of salutary advice which he might carry on his way, puffed and blew still faster, and finally disappeared in a cloud of smoke, which smelled of genuine Dutch canaster, and, slowly curling upwards, vanished amidst the tops of the pines.

      On his arrival home, Peter found his mother in great anxiety about him, for the good dame thought in reality her son had been drawn among the recruits. He, however, was in great glee and full of hope, and related to her how he had met with a good friend in the forest, who had advanced him money to begin another trade. Although his mother had been living for thirty years in a charcoal-burner's hut, and was as much accustomed to the sight of sooty people, as any miller's wife is to the floury face of her husband; yet, as soon as her Peter showed her a more splendid lot, she was vain enough to despise her former condition, and said: "In truth, as the mother of a man who possesses a glass-manufactory, I shall indeed be something different from neighbour Kate and Betsy, and shall in future sit more consequentially at church among the people of quality." Her son soon came to terms with the heir of the glass manufactory. He kept the workmen he found, and made them work day and night at manufacturing glass. At first he was well enough pleased with his new trade; he was in the habit of walking leisurely into the factory, striding up and down with an air of consequence and with his hands in his pockets, looking now in one corner, now in another, and talking about various things at which his workmen often used to laugh heartily. His chief delight, however, was to see the glass blown, when he would often set to work himself, and form the strangest figures of the soft mass. But he soon took a dislike to the work; first came only for an hour in the day, then only every other day, and finally only once a week, so that his workmen did just what they liked. All this proceeded from his frequenting the public-house. The Sunday after he had come back from the Tannenbühl he went to the public-house, and who should be jumping there already but the king of the ball-room; fat Hezekiel also was already sitting by a quart pot, playing at dice for crown-pieces. Now Peter quickly put his hand into his pocket to feel whether the glass-mannikin had been true to his word, and lo! his pockets were stuffed full of silver and gold. He also felt an itching and twitching in his legs, as if they wished to dance and caper. When the first dance was over, he took his place with his partner at the top next to the "king of the ball-room;" and if the latter jumped three feet high, Peter jumped four; if he made fantastic and graceful steps, Peter twined and twisted his legs in such a manner that all the spectators were utterly amazed with delight and admiration. But when it was rumoured in the dancing-room that Peter had bought a glass manufactory, and when people saw that Peter, as often as he passed the musicians, threw a six-batzner piece to them, there was no end of astonishment. Some thought he had found a treasure in the forest, others were of opinion that he had succeeded to some fortune, but all respected him now, and considered him a made man, simply because he had plenty of money. Indeed that very evening he lost twenty florins at play, and yet his pockets jingled and tingled as if there were a hundred thalers in them.

      When Peter saw how much respected he was, he could no longer contain himself with joy and pride. He threw away handfuls of money and distributed it profusely among the poor, knowing full well as he did how poverty had formerly pinched him. The feats of the king of the ball-room were completely eclipsed by those of the new dancer, and Peter was surnamed the "emperor of the ball-room." The most daring gamblers did not stake so much as he did on a Sunday, neither did they, however, lose so much; but then, the more he lost, the more he won. This was exactly what he had demanded from the glass-mannikin; for he had wished he might always have as much money in his pocket as fat Hezekiel, and it was to this very man he lost his money. If he lost twenty or thirty florins at a stroke, they were immediately replaced in his own pocket, as soon as Hezekiel pocketed them. By degrees he carried his revelling and gambling further than the worst fellows in the Schwarzwald, and he was oftener called "gambling Peter" than "emperor of the ball-room," since he now gambled almost all the week days. In consequence of his imprudence, his glass manufactory gradually fell off. He had manufactured as much as ever could be made, but he had failed to purchase, together with the factory, the secret of disposing of it most profitably. At length it accumulated

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