Schneider was not literary in his taste; his sole reading was an old
dog's-eared copy of the "Arabian Nights" done into German, and in that
he read nothing but the story of "Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp."
Upon his five hundredth perusal of that he conceived a valuable idea:
he would rub _his_ lamp and _corral_ a Genie! So he put a thick
leather glove on his right hand, and went to the cupboard to get out
the lamp. He had no lamp. But this disappointment, which would have
been instantly fatal to a more despondent man, was only an agreeable
stimulus to him. He took out an old iron candle-snuffer, and went to
work upon that.

Now, iron is very hard; it requires more rubbing than any other metal.
I once chafed a Genie out of an anvil, but I was quite weary before I
got him all out; the slightest irritation of a leaden water-pipe would
have fetched the same Genie out of it like a rat from his hole. But
having planted all his poultry, sown his potatoes, and set out his
wheat, Heinrich had the whole summer before him, and he was patient;
he devoted all his time to compelling the attendance of the
Supernatural.

When the autumn came, the good wife reaped the chickens, dug out the
apples, plucked the pigs and other cereals; and a wonderfully abundant
harvest it was. Schneider's crops had flourished amazingly. That was
because he did not worry them all summer with agricultural implements.
One evening when the produce had been stored, Heinrich sat at his
fireside operating upon his candle-snuffer with the same simple faith
as in the early spring. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and
the expected Genie put in an appearance. His advent begot no little
surprise in the good couple.

He was a very substantial incarnation, indeed, of the Supernatural.
About eight feet in length, extremely fat, thick-limbed, ill-favoured,
heavy of movement, and generally unpretty, he did not at first sight
impress his new master any too favourably.

However, he was given a stool at the fireside, and Heinrich plied him
with a multitude of questions: Where did he come from? whom had he
last served? how did he like Aladdin? and did he think _they_ should
get on well? To all these queries the Genie returned evasive answers;
he was Delphic to the verge of unintelligibility. He would only nod
mysteriously, muttering beneath his breath in some unknown tongue,
probably Arabic--in which, however, his master thought he could
distinguish the words "r