you rightly deserve to
be called Guardian, for you can dispense treasures indeed! Well--and so
I may wish for whatever my heart desires! Now, for my first, I wish I
could dance even better than the Dance-King, and could always have as
much money in my pocket as Fat Ezekiel."

"You idiot!" cried the dwarf, angrily. "What a miserable wish--to be a
good dancer, and to have money wherewith to gamble! Are you not ashamed
of yourself, you stupid Peter, to cheat yourself of so good a chance of
happiness? What good will your dancing be to your mother or to
yourself? How will your money help you, which, according to your wish,
is only for the tavern, and will only stay there like that of the
wretched Dance-King? For the rest of the week you will have nothing,
and be no better off than before. One more wish I am to grant you; but
take care you ask for something more sensible." Peter scratched his
head, and after a little hesitation, said: "Well, I will wish myself
the finest and richest glass-factory in the whole Black Forest with
everything complete and money to carry it on."

"Nothing else?" asked the little man, anxiously. "Nothing else, Peter?"

"Well--you might add a horse, and a little trap--"

"Oh, you stupid Charcoal-Peter!" exclaimed the dwarf, throwing his
glass-pipe angrily against a big pine, where it shattered to atoms.
"Horses! Traps! _Sense_, I say to you, _good sense, sound common-sense
and insight_ you should have wished for--not horses and traps. Ah well,
don't be so downcast; we will see whether we cannot keep you from
coming to harm, for the second wish was not so foolish on the whole. A
good glass-factory will support both master and man; if you had only
insight and understanding into the bargain, carriages and horses would
have come of themselves."

"But, Master Guardian," remarked Peter, "I have still one wish left. I
could wish for sense with that, if it is so supremely necessary as you
say."

"No, no, Peter. You will find yourself in many an awkward fix yet, when
you will be glad that you have still another wish left you. For the
present, take yourself homewards. Here are two thousand guilders,"
continued the little forest gnome, drawing a little purse from his
pocket. "Be satisfied with them; for if you come here again asking for
money, I shall have to hang you to the tallest of yonder pine-trees.
Such has been my custom ever since I came to live in this forest. Old
Winkfritz, who owned that large