ppery and high for him to be able to clamber up, and he only hurt
himself every time he attempted to escape. There was nothing for it,
then, but for him to lie down and howl. He had to satisfy his hunger
as best he might, by eating the stray worms and woodlice and fungi,
which he found creeping, crawling, and growing round about the roots
of the tree. We will leave him there for the present and return to the
others.

Franz, Hans, and their mother waited and waited for Fritz to come
back. Hans and his mother could not believe it possible that, when he
had secured the sparkling golden water, he would leave them in their
poverty. Franz, on the other hand, judging Fritz by himself, thought
that nothing was more likely. And Franz was most probably right. Six
weeks was the shortest time in which Fritz could be home again.
"Unless," said Hans, "he buys a horse and rides back, as he will be
very well able to do when he has got the sparkling golden water." But
six weeks passed, and two months, and three months, and no Fritz,
either on horseback or afoot. Then Franz's patience came to an end. He
must needs go, too.

"I won't wait here starving any longer," said he; "Fritz has forgotten
all about us. I'll get the sparkling golden water and become
Burgomaster." So off he set, following the same road as Fritz, and
meeting with much the same difficulties. They were, however, rather
greater in his case than in his brother's. Folk remembered the
ill-conditioned Fritz only too well, and Franz was so like him in
looks and manner, that they shut the door in his face the moment he
appeared, and ran upstairs and called out from the top windows of
their houses, "Go away! There's nothing for you here. The big dog's
loose in the yard. Go away, charcoal-burner."

However, by dint of perseverance, in which to say the truth he was not
lacking, Franz, very hungry and sulky, reached the verge of the forest
of dead trees. Out came the unicorn and asked his business. On Franz
replying that he wanted the sparkling golden water in order to buy the
house and post of Burgomaster, the unicorn tossed him into the air,
and he tumbled into the same tree as Fritz. Then the unicorn trotted
back into the forest, muttering, for Franz's benefit: "So much for you
and your Burgomastership!"

When Fritz and Franz found themselves thus closely confined in the
same prison, they, instead of making the best of each other's company,
as sensible brothers would have d