towel; and be assured we shall
both be benefitted. I shall get more customers than the man with the
giant, while each one of them will cheerfully give you a fee."

Jacob's soul recoiled at the thought of serving as a sign for a barber.
But was he not forced to suffer this abuse patiently? He therefore
quietly told the barber that he had not the time for such services, and
went on his way.

Although the wicked old woman had changed his form, she had had no
power over his spirit, and of this fact Jacob was well aware, as he no
longer felt and thought as he had done seven years before. No; he knew
he had grown wiser and more intelligent in this interval; he sorrowed
not over his lost beauty, not over his ugly shape, but only over the
fact that he had been driven like a dog from his father's door. He now
resolved to make one more attempt to convince his mother of his
identity.

He went to her in the market, and begged her to listen to him quietly.
He reminded her of the day on which he had gone home with the old
woman, of all the little details of his childhood, told her of his
seven years' service as a squirrel with the old witch, and how she
transformed him because he had criticised her appearance. The
shoemaker's wife did not know what to think of all this. His stories of
his childhood agreed with her own recollections; but when he told her
that he had been a squirrel for seven years, she exclaimed: "It is
impossible! and there are no witches." And when she looked at him, she
shuddered at the sight of the ugly dwarf, and did not believe he could
be her son. Finally, she considered it best to lay the matter before
her husband. So she collected her baskets and called the dwarf to go
with her. On reaching the shoemaker's stall, she said:

"Look here; this person claims to be our lost son, Jacob. He has told
me all how he was stolen from us seven years ago, and how he was
bewitched by an old hag."

"Indeed!" interrupted the shoemaker, angrily. "Did he tell you that?
Wait, you good-for nothing! I told him all this myself, not an hour
ago, and now he runs over to jest with you! Enchanted are you, sonny?
I will disenchant you again!" With this he picked up a bundle of thongs
that he had just cut out, sprang at the dwarf, and lashed him on his
back and arms till the dwarf cried out with pain and ran off weeping.

In that city, as in every other, there were but few pitying souls who
would assist a poor unfortunate about w