that bought _you_,
and that was all that _he_ thought about. You know it is only the
public money that goes!' And the horrid creature grinned again
till he actually cracked himself. There is a Providence above all
things, even museums."

"Providence might have interfered before, and saved the public
money," said the little Meissen lady with the pink shoes.

"After all, does it matter?" said a Dutch jar of Haarlem. "All
the shamming in the world will not _make_ them us!"

"One does not like to be vulgarized," said the Lady of Meissen,
angrily.

"My maker, the Krabbetje,[A] did not trouble his head about
that," said the Haarlem jar, proudly. "The Krabbetje made me for
the kitchen, the bright, clean, snow-white Dutch kitchen,
wellnigh three centuries ago, and now I am thought worthy the
palace; yet I wish I were at home; yes, I wish I could see the
good Dutch vrouw, and the shining canals, and the great green
meadows dotted with the kine."

[Footnote A: Jan Asselyn, called Krabbetje, the Little Crab, born
1610, master-potter of Delft and Haarlem.]

"Ah! if we could all go back to our makers!" sighed the Gubbio
plate, thinking of Giorgio Andreoli and the glad and gracious
days of the Renaissance: and somehow the words touched the
frolicsome souls of the dancing jars, the spinning teapots, the
chairs that were playing cards; and the violin stopped its merry
music with a sob, and the spinet sighed,--thinking of dead hands.

Even the little Saxe poodle howled for a master forever lost; and
only the swords went on quarrelling, and made such a clattering
noise that the Japanese bonze rode at them on his monster and
knocked them both right over, and they lay straight and still,
looking foolish, and the little Nymphenburg maid, though she was
crying, smiled and almost laughed.

Then from where the great stove stood there came a solemn voice.

All eyes turned upon Hirschvogel, and the heart of its little
human comrade gave a great jump of joy.

"My friends," said that clear voice from the turret of Nuernberg
faience, "I have listened to all you have said. There is too much
talking among the Mortalities whom one of themselves has called
the Windbags. Let not us be like them. I hear among men so much
vain speech, so much precious breath and precious time wasted in
empty boasts, foolish anger, useless reiteration, blatant
argument, ignoble mouthings, that I have learned to deem speech a
curse, laid on man to weaken and