he glass-manufacturers, and
the clockmakers regarded; and even the musicians, on a Sunday evening!
And when Peter Munk appears washed, clean, and dressed out in his
father's best jacket with the silver buttons and bran new red
stockings--if then, any one walking behind him, thinks to himself, 'I
wonder who that smart fellow is?' admiring, all the time, my stockings
and stately gait;--if then, I say, he passes me and looks round, will
he not say, 'Why, it is only Peter Munk, the charcoal-burner."

The raftsmen also on the other side of the wood were an object of envy
to him. When these giants of the forest came over in their splendid
clothes, wearing about their bodies half a hundred weight of silver,
either in buckles, buttons or chains, standing with sprawling legs and
consequential look to see the dancing, swearing in Dutch, and smoking
Cologne clay pipes a yard long, like the most noble Mynheers, then he
pictured to himself such a raftsman as the most perfect model of human
happiness. But when these fortunate men put their hands into their
pocket, pulled out handsful of thalers and staked a Sechsbatzner piece
upon the cast of a die, throwing their five or ten florins to and fro,
he was almost mad and sneaked sorrowfully home to his hut. Indeed he
had seen some of these gentlemen of the timber trade, on many a
holy-day evening, lose more than his poor old father had gained in the
whole year. There were three of these men, in particular, of whom he
knew not which to admire most. The one was a tall stout man with ruddy
face, who passed for the richest man in the neighbourhood; he was
usually called fat "Hesekiel." Twice every year he went with timber to
Amsterdam, and had the good luck to sell it so much dearer than the
rest that he could return home in a splendid carriage, while they had
to walk. The second was the tallest and leanest man in the whole
_Wald_, and was usually called "the tall Schlurker;" it was his
extraordinary boldness that excited Munk's envy, for he contradicted
people of the first importance, took up more room than four stout men,
no matter how crowded the inn might be, setting either both his elbows
upon the table, or drawing one of his long legs on the bench; yet,
notwithstanding all this, none dared to oppose him, since he had a
prodigious quantity of money. The third was a handsome young fellow,
who being the best dancer far around, was hence called "the king of the
ball-room." Origina