ot
far off, you may be sure."

As he spoke he clapped his hands thrice, and before the third clap had
died away the poor cottage was swarming with tiny figures, whom the
baron rightly conjectured to be the fairies themselves.

Now, you may not be aware (the baron was not, until that night) that
there are among the fairies trades and professions, just as with
ordinary mortals.

However, there they were, each with the accompaniments of his or her
particular business, and to it they went manfully. A fairy glazier put
in new panes to the shattered windows, fairy carpenters replaced the
doors upon their hinges, and fairy painters, with inconceivable
celerity, made cupboards and closets as fresh as paint could make them;
one fairy housemaid laid and lit a roaring fire, while another dusted
and rubbed chairs and tables to a miraculous degree of brightness; a
fairy butler uncorked bottles of fairy wine, and a fairy cook laid out a
repast of most tempting appearance.

The baron, hearing a tapping above him, cast his eyes upward, and beheld
a fairy slater rapidly repairing a hole in the roof; and when he bent
them down again they fell on a fairy doctor mixing a cordial for the
sleepers. Nay, there was even a fairy parson, who, not having any
present employment, contented himself with rubbing his hands and looking
pleasant, probably waiting till somebody might want to be christened or
married.

Every trade, every profession or occupation appeared, without exception,
to be represented; nay, we beg pardon, with one exception only, for the
baron used to say, when afterwards relating his experiences to bachelor
friends,--

"You may believe me or not, sir, there was every mortal business under
the sun, _but deil a bit of a lawyer_."

The baron could not long remain inactive. He was rapidly seized with a
violent desire to do something to help, which manifested itself in
insane attempts to assist everybody at once. At last, after having taken
all the skin off his knuckles in attempting to hammer in nails in aid of
the carpenter, and then nearly tumbling over a fairy housemaid, whose
broom he was offering to carry, he gave it up as a bad job, and stood
aside with his friend the goblin.

He was just about to inquire how it was that the poor occupants of the
house were not awakened by so much din, when a fairy Sam Slick, who had
been examining the cottager's old clock with a view to a thorough
repair, touched some spring within i