Now the Minster clock struck a quarter to one; all the dancers instantaneously stopped, visibly exhausted, and everything was reinstated in its former order. Hesitating, the musician looked on, uncertain whether he ought to stay any longer, or whether he might go; when the lady who had engaged his services came up to him and said: 'Brave musician! thou hast done thy work to our content, and shalt now receive thy recompense." While saying the words she pulled off his jacket, and, before he was aware of it, she had slipped behind him, and at one grasp relieved him of his hump. Who so happy as the disburthened fiddler? In thankfulness he was just going to throw himself on his knees before his benefactress,--when the clock struck One, and in a moment, ladies, lights, and dishes were gone, and the musician found himself at dark night standing alone in the middle of the Fish Market. Bewildered, he put his hand to his back, doubting lest the adventure had been merely a confused dream. But, no; it was reality! The hump was gone, and the happy fellow rejoiced in feeling as upright as man can be. Moreover, his joy was still increased when he took up his jacket, which lay before him on the ground. Perceiving it to be unaccountably heavy, and thrusting his hands into the pockets to ascertain the cause, he found that both pockets were filled with money. Doubly happy, he hastened home, and in thankfulness he made the next morning an offering of his fiddle to his Patron Saint, under whose image in the church he hung it as a glorious relic to be venerated by his children and his children's children for ever. Now, the marvellous affair created, as may easily be understood, an immense sensation in the town. People went to the church to look at the fiddle; and whenever the lucky musician showed himself in public, a knot of curious idlers hovered around him, anxious to get a peep at his back. Moreover, his good fortune, as may likewise be easily understood, aroused the envy of his rivals in his profession. The most envious of these professional brothers possessed himself a tolerably respectable hump, which annoyed him all the more, since he was not less vain than envious. His estimation of his personal appearance was, however, exceeded by that of his musical accomplishments. "How surprised they will be!" said he to himself: "If that wretched scraper could please them, I am sure I have only to treat them with a few of my inimitable flourishes, and I shall be a straight man and a man of property in no time!"