igure. Three times the dwarfs changed in the building of
this pyramid, and three times, attended by it, must the bride dance
round the table, through the gaping groups of guests. This done,
Stringstriker played a lively march, broke through a window with his
fiddlestick, and leapt out through the opening--whilst the whole dwarf
brotherhood, waltzing, laughing, tumbling, in a countless crowd,
prepared to follow him. For a time the procession fluctuated through the
air, where the girdles yet sparkled. Soon, like a dissolving gleam, all
vanished!

"The stupified boors were now able to stir themselves again. Doubtless
there were many bumps, black and blue faces, and bloody noses: but the
sight of all could not suppress the most extravagant merriment. All that
had happened was looked upon as a prank of the fiddler, and many in
their hearts felt that they had only received a just punishment for
their coarse and unchristian calumnies.

"Klaus Stringstriker's fame lived upon every tongue. The dwarfs obtained
no mean eulogies: and when it was at last discovered that the small
mannikins had, close before the window, one and all thrown down their
broad brown capkins with the brilliant clasps, the company for joy was
almost mad. The bridegroom was importuned, in remembrance of this
marvellous festival, to bestow upon each guest one such dwarf-hatkin,
and Klaus did not need a long begging. Each one acquired a hatkin with
its agraffe: some of a greedy nature, by stealth, possessed themselves
of two. The presents given, the company returned to the board, and drank
and uproared far into the night.

"Upon the morrow, Klaus found the Dwarf-hatkins turned into so many
Kremnitz double ducats, and upon each there lay, glittering in the
sunshine, a fine diamond. As he gathered them, a delicate voice from
unseen lips whispered to him that these were his father's hairs. All the
gift-receivers had the same wonder to tell. Those, however, who had
secretly taken away the second dwarf's cap were punished for the theft--
for they got nothing from the transformation but a wet and worthless
beech-leaf.

"From that hour all haunting upon Klaus's estate ceased. Even at the
Dwarf's well nothing remarkable was seen, save once a-year--upon the
anniversary of the young boor's wedding-day--when a great gamboling
flame appeared upon the waters, in which a singing and ringing might be
heard, like the voices of the smallest beings. The fortunate Klaus buil