it really is. When one holds it before the eye, and looks at a drop of
water out of the pond, then one sees above a thousand strange
creatures. It looks almost like a whole plateful of shrimps springing
about among each other, and they are so ravenous, they tear one
another's arms and legs, tails and sides, and yet they are glad and
pleased in their way.

Now, there was once an old man, who was called by every body
Creep-and-Crawl; for that was his name. He would always make the best
out of everything, and when he could not make anything out of it he
resorted to witchcraft.

Now, one day he sat and held his magnifying glass before his eye, and
looked at a drop of water that was taken out of a little pool in the
ditch. What a creeping and crawling was there! all the thousands of
small creatures hopped and jumped about, pulled one another, and
pecked one another.

"But this is abominable!" said Creep-and-Crawl, "Can one not get them
to live in peace and quiet, and each mind his own business?" And he
thought and thought, but he could come to no conclusion, and so he was
obliged to conjure. "I must give them a color, that they may be more
discernible!" said he; and so he poured something like a little drop
of red wine into the drop of water, but it was bewitched blood from
the lobe of the ear--the very finest sort for a penny; and then all
the strange creatures became rose-colored over the whole body. It
looked like a whole town of naked savages.

"What have you got there?" said another old wizard, who had no name,
and that was just the best of it.

"Why," said Creep-and-Crawl, "if you can guess what it is, I will make
you a present of it; but it is not so easy to find out when one does
not know it!"

The wizard who had no name looked through the magnifying glass. It
actually appeared like a whole town, where all the inhabitants ran
about without clothes! it was terrible, but still more terrible to see
how the one knocked and pushed the other, bit each other, and drew one
another about. What was undermost should be topmost, and what was
topmost should be undermost!--See there, now! his leg is longer than
mine!--whip it off, and away with it! There is one that has a little
lump behind the ear, a little innocent lump, but it pains him, and so
it shall pain him still more! And they pecked at it, and they dragged
him about, and they ate him, and all on account of the little lump.
There sat one as still as a little mai