"Thy choice was, in a way, amiss, But those few words do tell thee this-- What thou hast won will never alter, To use it thou needs't never falter. What 'tis as yet thou dost not see, An endless source of joy 'twill be. _Ignorantiam_ 'twill enlighten, _Sapientiam_ further brighten." "Good heavens!" cried Tussmann, "it's a book. Yet, no, it's not a book, and there's nothing in the shape of a portrait. It's merely a lot of paper bound up together; my hopes are dashed to earth, all is over with me now. All I have got to do is to be off to the frog-pond as quickly as I can." But as he was hurrying away the Goldsmith stopped him, and said-- "Tussmann, you're very foolish; you've got hold of the most priceless treasure you could possibly have come across. Those lines of verse ought to have told you so at once. Do me the favour to put that book which you found in the casket into your pocket." Tussmann did so. "Now," said the Goldsmith, "think of some book or other which you would wish that you had in your pocket at this moment." "Oh, my goodness," said Tussmann, "I went and shied Thomasius's little treatise on 'Diplomatic Acumen' into the frog-pond, like an utter fool as I was." "Put your hand in your pocket," said the Goldsmith, "and take out the book." Tussmann did so, and lo, the book which he brought out was none other than Thomasius's treatise! "Ha!" cried Tussmann, "what is this? Why it is Thomasius's treatise, my beloved Thomasius, rescued from the congregation of frogs in the pond, who would never have learned diplomatic acumen from him." "Keep yourself calm," the Goldsmith said; "put the book into your pocket again." Tussmann did so. "Think of some other rare work," the Goldsmith said: "one which you have never been able to come across in any library." "Oh, good gracious!" cried Tussmann in melancholy accents. "I have been, you see, in the habit of sometimes going to the opera, so that I have wanted, very much, to ground myself a little in the theory of music, and I have been trying in vain hitherto to get hold of a copy of a certain little treatise which explains the arts of the composer and the performer, in an allegorical form. I mean Johann Beer's 'Musical War,' an account of the contest between composition and harmony, which are represented under the guise of two heroines, who do battle with each other, and end by being completely reconciled." "Feel in your pocket," said the Goldsmith; and the Clerk of the Privy Chancery shouted with joy when he found that his paper book now consisted of Johann Beer's 'Musical War.'