No, now, to-night! A GIRL. Can you conjure, Peer? PEER. I can call up the devil! A MAN. My grandam could do that before I was born! PEER. Liar! What _I_ can do, that no one else can. I one day conjured him into a nut. It was worm-bored, you see! SEVERAL. [_Laughing._] Ay, that’s easily guessed! PEER. He cursed, and he wept, and he wanted to bribe me With all sorts of things—— ONE OF THE CROWD. But he had to go in? PEER. Of course. I stopped up the hole with a peg. Hei! If you’d heard him rumbling and grumbling! A GIRL. Only think! PEER. It was just like a humble-bee buzzing. THE GIRL. Have you got him still in the nut? PEER. Why, no; By this time that devil has flown on his way. The grudge the smith bears me is all his doing. A LAD. Indeed? PEER. I went to the smithy, and begged That he would crack that same nutshell for me. He promised he would!—laid it down on his anvil; But Aslak, you know, is so heavy of hand;— For ever swinging that great sledge-hammer—— A VOICE FROM THE CROWD. Did he kill the foul fiend? PEER. He laid on like a man. But the devil showed fight, and tore off in a flame Through the roof, and shattered the wall asunder. SEVERAL VOICES. And the smith——? PEER. Stood there with his hands all scorched. And from that day onwards, we’ve never been friends. [_General laughter._ SOME OF THE CROWD. That yarn is a good one. OTHERS. About his best. PEER. Do you think I am making it up? A MAN. Oh no, That you’re certainly not; for I’ve heard the most on’t From my grandfather—— PEER. Liar! It happened to me! THE MAN. Yes, like everything else. PEER. [_With a fling._]