, and made him drink up all his
money, and his house, his clothes, his horses and carts and
sledges--everything he had--until he was as poor as his brother had
been in the beginning.

The merchant thought and thought, and puzzled his brain to find a way
to get rid of him. And at last one night, when Misery had groaned
himself to sleep, the merchant went out into the yard and took a big
cart wheel and made two stout wedges of wood, just big enough to fit
into the hub of the wheel. He drove one wedge firmly in at one end of
the hub, and left the wheel in the yard with the other wedge, and a
big hammer lying handy close to it.

In the morning Misery wakes as usual, and cries out to be taken to the
tavern.

"We've sold everything I've got," says the merchant.

"Well, what are you going to do to amuse me?" says Misery.

"Let's play hide-and-seek in the yard," says the merchant.

"Right," says Misery; "but you'll never find me, for I can make myself
so small I can hide in a mouse-hole in the floor."

"We'll see," says the merchant.

The merchant hid first, and Misery found him at once.

"Now it's my turn," says Misery; "but what's the good? You'll never
find me. Why, I could get inside the hub of that wheel if I had a mind
to."

"What a liar you are!" says the merchant; "you never could get into
that little hole."

"Look," says Misery, and he made himself little, little, little, and
sat on the hub of the wheel.

"Look," says he, making himself smaller again; and then, pouf! in he
pops into the hole of the hub.

Instantly the merchant took the other wedge and the hammer, and drove
the wedge into the hole. The first wedge had closed up the other end,
and so there was Misery shut up inside the hub of the cart wheel.

The merchant set the wheel on his shoulders, and took it to the river
and threw it out as far as he could, and it went floating away down to
the sea.

Then he went home and set to work to make money again, and earn his
daily bread; for Misery had made him so poor that he had nothing left,
and had to hire himself out to make a living, just as his peasant
brother used to do.

But what happened to Misery when he went floating away?

He floated away down the river, shut up in the hub of the wheel. He
ought to have starved there. But I am afraid some silly, greedy fellow
thought to get a new wheel for nothing, and pulled the wedges out and
let him go; for, by all I hear, Misery is still wandering a