on: SOUTH WEST WIND ESQUIRE]

CHAPTER II.

OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE THREE BROTHERS AFTER THE VISIT OF SOUTH-WEST
WIND, ESQUIRE; AND HOW LITTLE GLUCK HAD AN INTERVIEW WITH THE KING OF
THE GOLDEN RIVER.

[Illustration]

South-west wind, Esquire, was as good as his word. After the momentous
visit above related, he entered the Treasure Valley no more; and, what
was worse, he had so much influence with his relations, the West Winds
in general, and used it so effectually, that they all adopted a similar
line of conduct. So no rain fell in the valley from one year's end to
another. Though everything remained green and flourishing in the plains
below, the inheritance of the Three Brothers was a desert. What had once
been the richest soil in the kingdom, became a shifting heap of red
sand; and the brothers, unable longer to contend with the adverse skies,
abandoned their valueless patrimony in despair, to seek some means of
gaining a livelihood among the cities and people of the plains. All
their money was gone, and they had nothing left but some curious
old-fashioned pieces of gold plate, the last remnants of their
ill-gotten wealth.

[Illustration]

"Suppose we turn goldsmiths?" said Schwartz to Hans, as they entered the
large city. "It is a good knave's trade; we can put a great deal of
copper into the gold, without any one's finding it out."

The thought was agreed to be a very good one; they hired a furnace, and
turned goldsmiths. But two slight circumstances affected their trade:
the first, that people did not approve of the coppered gold; the second,
that the two elder brothers, whenever they had sold anything, used to
leave little Gluck to mind the furnace, and go and drink out the money
in the ale-house next door. So they melted all their gold, without
making money enough to buy more, and were at last reduced to one large
drinking mug, which an uncle of his had given to little Gluck, and which
he was very fond of, and would not have parted with for the world;
though he never drank anything out of it but milk and water. The mug was
a very odd mug to look at. The handle was formed of two wreaths of
flowing golden hair, so finely spun that it looked more like silk than
metal, and these wreaths descended into, and mixed with, a beard and
whiskers of the same exquisite workmanship, which surrounded and
decorated a very fierce little face, of the reddest gold imaginable,
right in the front of the mug, with a