Immediately the stagnation of the blood ceased, the princess revived, and our work had succeeded. "Each of us,--that is, I and my colleague,--knew full well how invaluable was the possession of the princess, and each struggled for it, imagining that he had more right to it than the other. My colleague affirmed that the tulip, in which he had found the princess, was his property; and that he had made the first discovery, which he had imparted to me; and that I could only be deemed an assistant, who had no right to demand, as a reward of his labour, the work itself at which he had assisted. I, on the other hand, brought forward my invention of the last and most difficult process, which had restored the princess to life, and in the execution of which my colleague had only helped; so that, if he had any claims of propriety upon the embryo in the flower-petal, yet the living person belonged to me. On this ground we quarrelled for many hours, till, having screamed ourselves hoarse, we at last came to a compromise. My colleague consigned the princess to me, in return for which I gave him an important glass, and this very glass is the cause of our present determined hostility. He affirms that I have treacherously purloined it--an impudent falsehood--and although I really know that the glass was lost in the transferring, yet I can declare, upon my honour and conscience, that I am not the cause of it, nor have I any idea how it could have happened. In fact, the glass is so small, that a grain of sand is about ten times larger. See, friend Pepusch; now I have told you all in confidence, and now you know that Dörtje Elverdink is no other than the revivified Princess Gamaheh, and must perceive that to such a high mysterious alliance a plain young man like you can have no----." "Stop!" interrupted George Pepusch, with a smile that was something satanic:--"stop! one confidence is worth another, and, therefore, I, on my side, will confide to you that I knew all that you have been telling me much earlier and much better than you did. I cannot laugh enough at your bigotry and your foolish pretensions. Know,--what you might have known long ago if your knowledge had not been confined to glass-grinding,--that I myself am the thistle, Zeherit, who stood where the princess had laid her head, and of whom you have thought fit to be silent through your whole history." "Pepusch!" cried the flea-tamer, "are you in your senses? The thistle, Zeherit, blooms in the distant Indies, in the beautiful valley, closed in by lofty rocks, where at times the wisest magi of the earth are wont to assemble: Lindhorst, the keeper of the records, can best inform you about it. And you, whom I have seen running about half starved with study and hunger, you pretend to be the thistle, Zeherit?"