"Hurrah! You are an excellent Little Glass-Man, and you are rightly called Schatzhauser, for with you the treasures are always at home. Well, if I am at liberty to wish for what my heart longs, my first wish shall be that I could dance better than the King of the Ball, and that I had as much money in my pocket as the Stout Ezekiel." [Illustration] "You fool!" exclaimed the little man scornfully; "What a pitiful wish is that, to dance well and have money to gamble with! Are you not ashamed, stupid Peter, to fool away your chance in such a fashion? Of what use will your dancing be to you and your poor mother? Of what use will money be to you, when, as can be seen from your wish, it is destined for the tavern, and like that of the miserable King of the Ball, will remain there? Then you would have nothing for the rest of the week, and will suffer want as before. I will give you another wish free; but look to it that you choose more intelligently?" Peter scratched his head, and said, after some hesitation: "Well, I wish for the most beautiful and costly glass-works in the whole Black Forest, together with suitable belongings for it, and money to keep it going." "Nothing else?" inquired the little man in an apprehensive manner; "nothing else, Peter?" "Well, you might add a horse and carriage to all this." "Oh, you stupid Charcoal Pete!" cried the little man, and threw his glass pipe in a fit of anger at a large pine tree, so that it broke into a hundred pieces. "Horses? Wagons? Intellect, I tell you, intellect, a sound human understanding and foresight, you should have wished for, and not horses and wagons. Well, don't look so sad; we will see that you don't come to much harm by it, for your second wish was not such a bad one. Glass-works will support both man and master; and if you had wished for foresight and understanding with it, wagons and horses would have followed as a matter of course." "But, Herr Schatzhauser," returned Peter, "I have one more wish left, and if you think that intellect is such a desirable thing, why, I might wish for it now." "Not so. You will get into many difficulties when you will rejoice that you still have one wish left. And so you had better now start on your way home. Here," said the little man, drawing a purse from his pocket, "are two thousand guldens, and it should be enough, so don't come back to me begging for more money, or I should have to hang you up to the highest pine tree. Three days ago old Winkfritz, who had the glass-works in the valley, died. Go there to-morrow early, and make a suitable bid for the business. Conduct yourself well, be diligent, and I will visit you occasionally and assist you with word and deed, as you did not wish for understanding. But--and I say this to you in all seriousness--your first wish was a bad one. Take care, Peter, how you run to the tavern; no one ever received any good thereby."