the drum, my henchmen!" cried the
Wind.--"And now, O man!" said the Wind, "thou mayst have this drum
with the twelve henchmen, and go to those accursed Jews, and if they
will not give thee back thy sack and thy ram, thou wilt know what to
say."

[Illustration: "OUT OF THE DRUM, MY HENCHMEN!"]

So the man thanked the Wind for his good advice, and went on his way.
He came to the inn, and when the Jews saw that he brought nothing with
him they said, "Hearken, O man! don't come here, for we have no
brandy."--"What do I want with your brandy?" cried the man in a
rage.--"Then for what hast thou come hither?"--"I have come for my
own."--"Thy own," said the Jews; "what dost thou mean?"--"What do I
mean?" roared the man; "why, my sack and my ram, which you must give
up to me."--"What ram? What sack?" said the Jews; "why, thou didst
take them away from here thyself."--"Yes, but you changed them," said
the man.--"What dost thou mean by changed?" whined the Jews; "we will
go before the magistrate, and thou shalt hear from us about
this."--"You will have an evil time of it if you go before the
magistrate," said the man; "but at any rate, give me back my own." And
he sat down upon a bench. Then the Jews caught him by the shoulders to
cast him out and cried, "Be off, thou rascal! Does any one know where
this man comes from? No doubt he is an evil-doer." The man could not
stand this, so he cried, "Out of the drum, my henchmen! and give the
accursed Jews a sound drubbing, that they may know better than to take
in honest folk!" and immediately the twelve henchmen leaped out of the
drum and began thwacking the Jews finely.--"Oh, oh!" roared the Jews;
"oh, dear, darling, good man, we'll give thee whatever thou dost want,
only leave off beating us! Let us live a bit longer in the world, and
we will give thee back everything."--"Good!" said the man, "and
another time you'll know better than to deceive people." Then he
cried, "Into the drum, my henchmen!" and the henchmen disappeared,
leaving the Jews more dead than alive. Then they gave the man his sack
and his ram, and he went home, but it was a long, long time before the
Jews forgot those henchmen.

So the man went home, and his wife and children saw him coming from
afar. "Daddy is coming home now with a sack and a ram!" said she;
"what shall we do? We shall have a bad time of it, we shall have
nothing left at all. God defend us poor wretches! Go and hide
everything, children." So the