what happened; for when he got his
measure back, three new silver five-shilling pieces were sticking to it.

What does this mean?' said Big Klaus, and he ran off at once to Little
Klaus.

'Where did you get so much money from?'

'Oh, that was from my horse-skin. I sold it yesterday evening.'

'That's certainly a good price!' said Big Klaus; and running home in
great haste, he took an axe, knocked all his four horses on the head,
skinned them, and went into the town.

'Skins! skins! Who will buy skins?' he cried through the streets.

All the shoemakers and tanners came running to ask him what he wanted
for them. 'A bushel of money for each,' said Big Klaus.

'Are you mad?' they all exclaimed. 'Do you think we have money by the
bushel?'

'Skins! skins! Who will buy skins?' he cried again, and to all who asked
him what they cost, he answered, 'A bushel of money.'

'He is making game of us,' they said; and the shoemakers seized their
yard measures and the tanners their leathern aprons and they gave Big
Klaus a good beating. 'Skins! skins!' they cried mockingly; yes, we will
tan YOUR skin for you! Out of the town with him!' they shouted; and Big
Klaus had to hurry off as quickly as he could, if he wanted to save his
life.

'Aha!' said he when he came home, 'Little Klaus shall pay dearly for
this. I will kill him!'

Little Klaus' grandmother had just died. Though she had been very unkind
to him, he was very much distressed, and he took the dead woman and laid
her in his warm bed to try if he could not bring her back to life.
There she lay the whole night, while he sat in the corner and slept on a
chair, which he had often done before. And in the night as he sat there
the door opened, and Big Klaus came in with his axe. He knew quite
well where Little Klaus's bed stood, and going up to it he struck the
grandmother on the head just where he thought Little Klaus would be.
'There!' said he. 'Now you won't get the best of me again!' And he went
home.

'What a very wicked man!' thought Little Klaus. 'He was going to kill
me! It was a good thing for my grandmother that she was dead already, or
else he would have killed her!'

Then he dressed his grandmother in her Sunday clothes, borrowed a horse
from his neighbour, harnessed the cart to it, sat his grandmother on the
back seat so that she could not fall out when he drove, and away they
went. When the sun rose they were in front of a large inn. Little Klaus
got dow