s agreeable and amicable life continued for some weeks, and
everybody was glad that affairs had arranged themselves. But one day
the lady brought a new complaint.

"He is a strange little creature, and he has begun to annoy me in the
most extraordinary way."

"That is bad," said the man. "What does he do now?"

"Oh, nothing," she answered, "and that is just the trouble. When I
want to talk about you, he refuses, and says he does not like you as
much as he used to. When I propose to play a game, he says he is tired
and would rather sit under a tree and hear stories. When I tell them
he says they do not suit him, they all end happily, and that is
stupid. He is very perverse. But he clings to me like a bur. He is
always teasing me to tell him the name of every flower in my garden
and give him one of every kind."

"Is he rude about it?"

"Not exactly rude, but he is all the more annoying because he is so
polite, and I always feel that he wants something different."

"He must not do that," said the man. "He must learn to want what you
wish."

"But how can he learn what I wish? I do not always know that myself."

"It may be difficult," said the man, "but all the same he must learn
it for your sake. I will deal with him."

So he took the unruly sprite out into the desert and gave him a sound
beating with thorn branches. The blood ran down the poor little
creature's arms and legs, and the tears down the man's cheeks. But the
only words that he said were: "You must learn to want what she
wishes--do you hear?--you must want what she wishes." At last the
sprite whimpered and said: "Yes, I hear; I will wish what she wants."
Then the man stopped beating him, and went back to his house, and
wrote a little story that was really good.

But the sprite lay on his face in the desert for a long time, sobbing
as if his heart would break. Then he fell asleep and laughed in his
dreams. When he awoke it was night and the moon was shining silver. He
rubbed his eyes and whispered to himself: "Now I must find out what
she wants." With that he leaped up, and the moonbeams washed him white
as he passed through them to the lady's house.

The next afternoon, when the man came to read her the really good
story, she would not listen.

"No," she said, "I am very angry with you."

"Why?"

"You know well enough."

"Upon my honour, I do not."

"What?" cried the lady. "You profess ignorance, when he distinctly
said----"

"Pardon," sa