The old devil could not help himself, and he began to go from farm to farm. The turn came to Iván's farm. The old devil came to dinner, and the dumb girl was just fixing it. Those who were lazy used to deceive her. Without having worked they came to dinner earlier and ate up all the porridge. And so the dumb girl contrived to tell the good-for-nothing by their hands: if one had calluses, she seated him at the table, but if not, she gave him what was left of the dinner. The old devil climbed behind the table; but the dumb girl took hold of his hands, and there were no calluses; the hands were clean and smooth, and the nails long. The dumb girl bawled, and pulled the devil out from behind the table. Iván's wife said to him: "Don't take it amiss, clean gentleman! My sister-in-law will not let a man without calluses sit down at the table. Wait awhile! Let the people eat first, and then you will get what is left." The old devil was insulted, because at the king's house they would feed him with the swine. He said to Iván: "What a fool's law you have in your country to let all men work with their hands! You have invented that in your stupidity. Do men work with their hands only? How do you suppose clever people work?" But Iván said: "How can we fools know? We labour mostly with our hands and with our backs." "That is so, because you are fools. I will teach you," he said, "how to work with your heads. You will see that with your heads you can work faster than with your hands." Iván marvelled. "Indeed," he said, "we are called fools for good reason." And the old devil said: "But it is not easy to work with the head. You do not give me anything to eat because I have no calluses on my hands, and you do not know that it is a hundred times harder to work with the head. At times it just makes the head burst." Iván fell to musing. "But why do you torture yourself so much, my dear? It is no small matter to have your head burst. You had better do some easy work,--with your hands and back." And the devil said: "The reason I torture myself is because I pity you fools. If I did not torture myself, you would remain fools to the end of your days. I have worked with my head, and now I will teach you, too." Iván marvelled. "Teach us," he said, "for now and then the hands get tired, and it would be nice to use the head instead." The devil promised to teach him. And Iván proclaimed throughout his kingdom that a clean-looking man had appeared who would teach people how to work with their heads, that they could work more with their heads than with their hands, and that they should come and learn. In Iván's kingdom there was a high tower, and a straight staircase led up to it, and at the top there was a spy-room. Iván took the gentleman there so that he might see better.