have you come at last?"

"Yes," said the Fiddler, "I have. It was Ill-Luck that brought me."

"Nay," said the little old man, "do not say that. Sit down to the table
and eat; and when I have told you all, you will say it was not Ill-Luck,
but Good-Luck, that brought you."

The Fiddler had his own mind about that; but, all the same, down he sat
at the table, and fell to with knife and fork at the good things, as
though he had not had a bite to eat for a week of Sundays.

"I am the richest man in the world," says the little old man, after a
while.

"I am glad to hear it," says the Fiddler.

"You may well be," said the old man, "for I am all alone in the world,
and without wife or child. And this morning I said to myself that the
first body that came to my house I would take for a son--or a daughter,
as the case might be. You are the first, and so you shall live with me
as long as I live, and after I am gone everything that I have shall be
yours."

The Fiddler did nothing but stare with open eyes and mouth, as though he
would never shut either again.

Well, the Fiddler lived with the old man for maybe three or four days as
snug and happy a life as ever a mouse passed in a green cheese. As for
the gold and silver and jewels--why, they were as plentiful in that
house as dust in a mill! Everything the Fiddler wanted came to his hand.
He lived high, and slept soft and warm, and never knew what it was to
want either more or less, or great or small. In all of those three or
four days he did nothing but enjoy himself with might and main.

But by-and-by he began to wonder where all the good things came from.
Then, before long, he fell to pestering the old man with questions about
the matter.

At first the old man put him off with short answers, but the Fiddler was
a master-hand at finding out anything he wanted to know. He dinned and
drummed and worried until flesh and blood could stand it no longer. So
at last the old man said that he would show him the treasure-house where
all his wealth came from, and at that the Fiddler was tickled beyond
measure.

The old man took a key from behind the door and led him out into the
garden. There in a corner by the wall was a great trap-door of iron. The
old man fitted the key to the lock and turned it. He lifted the door,
and then went down a steep flight of stone steps, and the Fiddler
followed close at his heels. Down below it was as light as day, for in
the centre of the room