and full of hope, and related
to her how he had met with a good friend in the forest, who had
advanced him money to begin another trade. Although his mother had
been living for thirty years in a charcoal-burner's hut, and was as
much accustomed to the sight of sooty people, as any miller's wife is
to the floury face of her husband; yet, as soon as her Peter showed her
a more splendid lot, she was vain enough to despise her former
condition, and said: "In truth, as the mother of a man who possesses a
glass-manufactory, I shall indeed be something different from neighbour
Kate and Betsy, and shall in future sit more consequentially at church
among the people of quality." Her son soon came to terms with the heir
of the glass manufactory. He kept the workmen he found, and made them
work day and night at manufacturing glass. At first he was well enough
pleased with his new trade; he was in the habit of walking leisurely
into the factory, striding up and down with an air of consequence and
with his hands in his pockets, looking now in one corner, now in
another, and talking about various things at which his workmen often
used to laugh heartily. His chief delight, however, was to see the
glass blown, when he would often set to work himself, and form the
strangest figures of the soft mass. But he soon took a dislike to the
work; first came only for an hour in the day, then only every other
day, and finally only once a week, so that his workmen did just what
they liked. All this proceeded from his frequenting the public-house.
The Sunday after he had come back from the Tannenbuehl he went to the
public-house, and who should be jumping there already but the king of
the ball-room; fat Hezekiel also was already sitting by a quart pot,
playing at dice for crown-pieces. Now Peter quickly put his hand into
his pocket to feel whether the glass-mannikin had been true to his
word, and lo! his pockets were stuffed full of silver and gold. He
also felt an itching and twitching in his legs, as if they wished to
dance and caper. When the first dance was over, he took his place with
his partner at the top next to the "king of the ball-room;" and if the
latter jumped three feet high, Peter jumped four; if he made fantastic
and graceful steps, Peter twined and twisted his legs in such a manner
that all the spectators were utterly amazed with delight and
admiration. But when it was rumoured in the dancing-room that Peter
had bought a