“I suppose she will call me a stuffed animal too,” thought Gaspar; “but I must show them the specimens.” So he stepped forward, and began to point out the various objects, and go over his usual descriptions. He did it in his neatest manner; but the girl kept smiling, as if it were all a great joke, and yet she looked at him with some interest. Gaspar went into another room to put on his mandarin's dress and peaked shoes, which he thought would produce a great effect; but if she had only smiled before, now she fairly laughed. Then he caught down his dagger which hung on the wall as one of the curiosities, and felt for a moment as if she were the lion, and he would plunge it into her; but the next moment he saw her beautiful face bending over it. “Ah, this dagger I like! How sharp the point is! It looks as if you might have done something with it. Tell me all about it, will you not?” said the girl. “If you will come here a week from to-day, I will tell you its history,” answered Gaspar; and she promised that she would surely come. At the appointed time she appeared--alone, now, Gaspar was glad to see, for he did not like to have her whispering and laughing with the other girls. However, he hoped she would not laugh now. He led her through the museum into another room, where he had been painting a picture of his fight with the lion. “That is excellent!” said the girl; “that is just the thing. There goes the dagger into the throat of the lion. How much better than a petrified peacock, or a labelled dromedary! And you killed the lion and painted the picture too?” “Yes,” answered Gaspar, quite gently. “And the dagger--where did you find that?” Gaspar told her how he had carved it of heart of oak when he was a boy, and had changed it to steel in fighting with the magician. “I must see that magician; let us go and find him,” said the girl. So away they went. As they walked along Gaspar told her about the ivory show box, and regretted that he had lost his flask of water, and exchanged his apple for the cantering horse, because they had now nothing to give the little gray man for a peep into it. “Wait a moment,” said the girl; and running into her house, which they were passing, she brought out a golden cup full of red wine. “I think he will like this better than the water--do not you?” When they came to the milestone, there sat the gray man, cracking away as inveterately as ever. “I should think he would be tired to death,” said Gaspar. “Think how much I have seen of the world while he has been cracking those old nuts.” The little man overheard him, and smiled to himself, as much as to say, “I know;” but when he saw the young girl, he rose up and made quite a profound bow. “He never bowed to me,” thought Gaspar. “Will you let me look into your ivory show box, and I will give you a drink of red wine,” said the girl.