e sun. When he had done this, he
shook Peter's hand in a friendly manner, accompanied him a short
distance on his way, giving him some valuable advice, meanwhile blowing
out thicker and thicker volumes of smoke, and finally disappearing in a
cloud of smoke, that, as if from genuine Dutch tobacco, curled slowly
about the tops of the pine trees.

When Peter arrived at home, he found his mother in a state of great
alarm about him, for the good woman could believe nothing else but that
her son had been drawn as a soldier. He, however, was in a very happy
mood, and told her how he had met a good friend in the forest, who had
advanced him money to undertake a better business than that of charcoal
burning. Although his mother had lived in this hut for thirty years,
and was as much accustomed to the sight of sooty faces as every
miller's wife is to the flour on her husband's face, yet she was vain
enough when Peter held out the prospect of a more brilliant life, to
despise her early condition, and said: "Yes, as mother of a man who
owns the glassworks, I am somewhat better than neighbor Grete and Bete,
and for the future I shall take a front seat in the church among
respectable people."

Peter soon concluded a bargain with the heirs for the glass-works. He
retained the workmen whom he found there, and made glass by day and
night. In the beginning he was much pleased with the business. He was
accustomed to walk proudly about the works, with his hands in his
pockets, looking into this and that, advising here and there, over
which his workmen laughed not a little; but his great delight was to
see the glass blown, and he often attempted this work himself, forming
the most singular shapes out of the molten mass. But before long he
tired of the business, and spent only an hour a day at the works; then
only an hour in two days, and finally he went only once a week, so that
his workmen did what they pleased.

All this resulted from his visits to the tavern. The Sunday after he
had met the little man in the wood, he went to the tavern, and found
the King of the Ball already leading the dance, while the Stout Ezekiel
was sitting down to his glass and shaking dice for crown-thalers. Peter
put his hand in his pocket to see if the Little Glass-Man had kept
faith with him, and behold, his pockets were bulged out with silver and
gold. His legs, too, began to twitch and move as though they were about
to dance and leap; and when the first da