The squirrels and guinea-pigs crowded whining
around him, as if anxious to accompany him, and he actually invited
them to do so when he was on the threshold, for they were nice little
creatures, but they glided quickly back into the house on their
nutshells, and he only heard them howling at a distance.

As it was a very remote part of the town to which the old woman had
brought him, he could hardly find his way through the narrow streets,
and as, moreover, there was a great crowd of people, wherever he went,
he could only account for this by supposing there must be a dwarf
somewhere in the neighbourhood for show, for he heard everywhere cries
of, "Only look at the ugly dwarf! Where does the dwarf come from? O!
what a long nose he has, and how his head sits between his shoulders,
and look at his brown ugly hands!" At any other time, he would
probably have followed the cry, for he was very fond of seeing giants
and dwarfs, and any sort of curious, foreign costume, but now he was
obliged to hurry and get to his mother.

He felt quite weary when he arrived at the market. He found his mother
still sitting there, and she had a tolerable quantity of fruit in the
basket; he could not therefore have been sleeping long, but still it
appeared to him, even at a distance, as if she were very melancholy,
for she did not call to those coming past to buy, but supported her
head by one hand, and on coming closer he likewise thought she looked
paler than usual. He hesitated as to what he should do; and at length
mustering up courage, crept gently behind her, and putting his hand
familiarly upon her arm, asked, "Dear mother, what's the matter with
you? are you angry with me?"

The woman turned round, but started back with a shriek of terror,
saying, "What do you want with me, you ugly dwarf? Begone, begone! I
do not like such jokes."

"But mother, what is the matter with you?" asked James, quite
terrified; "surely you must be unwell, why will you turn your son away
from you?"

"I have told you already to be gone," replied Jane, angrily; "you will
not get any money from me by your juggleries, you ill-favoured monster."

"Surely God has deprived her of the light of her intellect," said the
dwarf, deeply grieved within himself; "what shall I do to get her home?
Dear mother, pray do listen to reason; only look well at me, I am
indeed your son--your own James."

"Why this is carrying the joke too far," she said to her neighbour