cooking, from the guinea pigs? Thus he stood for
some time meditating on his fate, when at length his father asked him--

"Do you want to purchase any thing, young gentleman? Perhaps a pair of
new slippers or, peradventure, a case for your nose?" he added, smiling.

"What do you mean about my nose?" asked James; "why should I want a
case for it?"

"Why," replied the cobbler, "every one according to his taste; but I
must tell you, that if I had such a terrible nose, I should have a case
made for it of rose-coloured morocco. Look here, I have a beautiful
piece that is just the thing; indeed we should at least want a yard for
it. It would then be well guarded, my little gentleman; whereas now I
am sure you will knock it against every door-post and carriage you
would wish to avoid."

The dwarf was struck dumb with terror; he felt his nose, it was full
two hands long and thick in proportion. So then the old hag had
likewise changed his person; and hence it was his mother did not know
him, and people called him an ill-favoured dwarf.

"Master," said he, half crying to the cobbler, "have you no
looking-glass at hand in which I might behold myself?"

"Young gentleman," replied his father, gravely, "you have not exactly
been favoured as to appearance so as to make you vain, and you have no
cause to look often in the glass. You had better leave it off
altogether. It is with you a particularly ridiculous habit."

"Oh! pray let me look in the glass," cried the dwarf. "I assure you it
is not from vanity."

"Leave me in peace, I have none in my possession; my wife has a little
looking-glass, but I do not know where she has hid it. If you really
must look into one,--why then, over the way lives Urban, the barber,
who has a glass twice as big as your head; look in there, and now, good
morning."

With these words his father pushed him gently out of the stall, locked
the door after him, and sat down again to his work. The little dwarf,
much cast down, went over the way to the barber, whom he well
remembered in former times.

"Good morning, Urban," said he to him, "I come to beg a favour of you,
be so kind as to let me look a moment in your looking-glass."

"With pleasure," cried the barber, laughing, "there it is;" and his
customers who were about to be shaved laughed heartily with him. "You
are rather a pretty fellow, slim and genteel; you have a neck like a
swan, hands like a queen, and a turn-up nose, such as o