ker's family, driving along in a
coach and four, was blown quite out of the carriage, and could not
even find a place on the footboard at the back. Two rich peasants who
in our times had grown too high for their corn-fields, were tumbled
into the ditch. It was a dangerous flute, that: luckily, it burst at
the first note, and that was a good thing, for then it was put back
into the owner's pocket. "Everything in its right place."

The day afterwards not a word was said about this marvellous event;
and thence has come the expression "pocketing the flute." Everything
was in its usual order, only that the two old portraits of the dealer
and the goose-girl hung on the wall in the banqueting hall. They had
been blown up yonder, and as one of the real connoisseurs said they
had been painted by a master's hand, they remained where they were,
and were restored. "Everything in its right place."

And to that it will come; for _hereafter_ is long--longer than this
story.

THE GOBLIN AND THE HUCKSTER.

There was once a regular student: he lived in a garret, and nothing at
all belonged to him; but there was also once a regular huckster: he
lived on the ground floor, and the whole house was his; and the
goblin kept with him, for on the huckster's table on Christmas Eve
there was always a dish of plum porridge, with a great piece of butter
floating in the middle. The huckster could accomplish that; and
consequently the goblin stuck to the huckster's shop, and that was
very interesting.

[Illustration: THE STUDENT'S BARGAIN.]

One evening the student came through the back door to buy candles and
cheese for himself. He had no one to send, and that's why he came
himself. He procured what he wanted and paid for it, and the huckster
and his wife both nodded a "good evening" to him; and the woman was
one who could do more than merely nod--she had an immense power of
tongue! And the student nodded too, and then suddenly stood still,
reading the sheet of paper in which the cheese had been wrapped. It
was a leaf torn out of an old book, a book that ought not to have been
torn up, a book that was full of poetry.

"Yonder lies some more of the same sort," said the huckster: "I gave
an old woman a little coffee for the books; give me two groschen, and
you shall have the remainder."

"Yes," said the student, "give me the book instead of the cheese: I
can eat my bread and butter without cheese. It would be a sin to tear
the book u