everything went wrong in the country round. The hay had
hardly been got in when the haystacks were floated bodily down to the
sea by an inundation; the vines were cut to pieces with the hail; the
corn was all killed by a black blight. Only in the Treasure Valley, as
usual, all was safe. As it had rain when there was rain nowhere else,
so it had sun when there was sun nowhere else. Everybody came to buy
corn at the farm and went away pouring maledictions on the Black
Brothers. They asked what they liked and got it, except from the poor
people, who could only beg, and several of whom were starved at their
very door without the slightest regard or notice.

It was drawing towards winter, and very cold weather, when one day the
two elder brothers had gone out, with their usual warning to little
Gluck, who was left to mind the roast, that he was to let nobody in and
give nothing out. Gluck sat down quite close to the fire, for it was
raining very hard and the kitchen walls were by no means dry or
comfortable-looking. He turned and turned, and the roast got nice and
brown. "What a pity," thought Gluck, "my brothers never ask anybody to
dinner. I'm sure, when they've got such a nice piece of mutton as
this, and nobody else has got so much as a piece of dry bread, it would
do their hearts good to have somebody to eat it with them."

Just as he spoke there came a double knock at the house door, yet heavy
and dull, as though the knocker had been tied up--more like a puff than
a knock.

"It must be the wind," said Gluck; "nobody else would venture to knock
double knocks at our door."

No, it wasn't the wind; there it came again very hard, and, what was
particularly astounding, the knocker seemed to be in a hurry and not to
be in the least afraid of the consequences. Gluck went to the window,
opened it, and put his head out to see who it was.

It was the most extraordinary-looking little gentleman he had ever seen
in his life. He had a very large nose, slightly brass-colored; his
cheeks were very round and very red, and might have warranted a
supposition that he had been blowing a refractory fire for the last
eight-and-forty hours; his eyes twinkled merrily through long, silky
eyelashes; his mustaches curled twice round like a corkscrew on each
side of his mouth; and his hair, of a curious mixed pepper-and-salt
color, descended far over his shoulders. He was about four feet six in
height and wore a conical pointed