"That is a virtue," said the red fungus. "Do you happen to be a human being?" grumbled the big fellow, scornfully. "If so, I would like to have you eat me up!" Johannes did not do that, however. He took little dry twigs, and stuck them into his clumsy hood. That made him look silly, and all the others laughed--among them, a little group of tiny toadstools with small, brown heads, who in a couple of hours had sprung up together, and were jostling one another to get a peep at the world. The devil-fungus was blue with rage. That brought to light his poisonous nature. Puff-balls raised their round, inflated little heads on four-pointed pedestals. From time to time a cloud of brown powder, of the utmost fineness, flew out of the opening in the round head. Wherever on the moist ground that powder fell, tiny rootlets would interlace in the black earth, and the following year hundreds of new puff-balls would spring up. "What a beautiful existence!" said they to one another. "The very acme of attainment is to puff powder. What a joy to be able to puff, as long as one lives!" And with devout consecration they drove the small dust-clouds into the air. "Are they right, Windekind?" "Why not? For them, what can be higher? It is fortunate that they long for nothing more, when they can do nothing else." When night fell, and the shadows of the trees were intermingled in one general obscurity, that mysterious forest life did not cease. The branches cracked and snapped, the dry leaves rustled hither and thither over the grass and in the underwood, and Johannes felt the draft from inaudible wing-strokes, and was conscious of the presence of invisible beings. And now he heard, clearly, whispering voices and tripping footsteps. Look! There, in the dusky depths of the bushes, a tiny blue spark just twinkled, and then went out. Another one, and another! Hush! Listening attentively, he could hear a rustling in the leaves close beside him, by the dark tree-trunk. The blue lights appeared from behind this, and held still at the top. Everywhere, now, Johannes saw glimmering lights. They floated through the foliage, danced and skipped along the ground; and yonder was a great, glowing mass like a blue bonfire. "What kind of fire is that?" asked Johannes. "How splendidly it burns!" "That is a decayed tree-trunk," said Windekind. Then they went up to a bright little light, which was burning steadily. "Now I will introduce you to Wistik.[1] He is the oldest and wisest of the goblins." Having come up closer, Johannes saw him sitting beside his little candle. By the blue light of this, one could plainly distinguish the wrinkled, grey-bearded face. He was reading aloud, and his eyebrows were knit. On his head he wore a little acorn cap with a tiny feather in it. Before him sat a spider--listening to the reading.