. Then the old
graybeard gripped the cudgel in his hand. "Are you ready?" he asked.

"We are ready, and waiting," answered the three. Thereupon, without
another word, the graybeard fetched each of the dancers a blow upon the
head with might and main--One! two! three! crack! crash! jingle!

Lo and behold! Instead of the three dancing men, there lay three great
heaps of gold upon the floor, and the spendthrift stood staring like an
owl. "There," said the old man, "take what you want, and then go your
way, and trouble me no more."

"Well," said the spendthrift, "of all the wonders that ever I saw,
this is the most wonderful! But how am I to carry my gold away with me,
seeing I did not fetch my basket?"

"You shall have a basket," said the old man, "if only you will trouble
me no more. Just wait here a moment until I bring it to you."

The spendthrift was left all alone in the room; not a soul was there
but himself. He looked up, and he looked down, and scratched his head.
"Why," he cried aloud, "should I be content to take a part when I can
have the whole?"

To do was as easy as to say. He snatched up the iron candlestick, caught
up the staff that the old man had left leaning against the wall, and
seated himself upon the magic carpet. "By the horn of Jacob," he cried,
"I command thee, O Carpet! to carry me over hill and valley, over lake
and river, to a place where the old man can never find me."

Hardly had the words left his mouth than away flew the carpet through
the air, carrying him along with it; away and away, higher than the
clouds and swifter than the wind. Then at last it descended to the earth
again, and when the young spendthrift looked about him, he found himself
in just such a desert place as he and the old man had come to when
they had found the treasure. But he gave no thought to that, and hardly
looked around him to see where he was. All that he thought of was to
try his hand at the three dancers that belonged to the candlestick.
He struck a light, and lit the three candles, and instantly the three
little old men appeared for him just as they had for the old graybeard.
And around and around they spun and whirled, until the sand and dust
spun and whirled along with them. Then the young man grasped his cudgel
tightly.

Now, he had not noticed that when the old man struck the three dancers
he had held the cudgel in his left hand, for he was not wise enough
to know that great differences come from lit