s
was worse than ever.

Then he noticed a man who had on a pair of warm gloves, and he said to
himself, "Music is impossible when one's fingers are frozen. I believe I
should be the happiest man alive if I had those gloves."

So he went up to the owner and said, "You seem, sir, to have a very good
pair of gloves." And the man replied, "Truly, sir, my hands are as warm
as toast this bitter November day."

That quite decided Mr. Vinegar, and he asked at once what the owner
would take for them; and the owner, seeing he was a simpleton, said, "As
your hands seem frozen, sir, I will, as a favour, let you have them for
your bagpipes."

"Done!" cried Mr. Vinegar, delighted, and made the exchange.

Then he set off to find his wife, quite pleased with himself. "Warm
hands, warm heart!" he thought. "I'm the happiest man alive!"

But as he trudged he grew very, very tired, and at last began to limp.
Then he saw a man coming along the road with a stout stick.

"I should be the happiest man alive if I had that stick," he thought.
"What is the use of warm hands if your feet ache!" So he said to the man
with the stick, "What will you take for your stick?" and the man,
seeing he was a simpleton, replied:

"Well, I don't want to part with my stick, but as you are so pressing
I'll oblige you, as a friend, for those warm gloves you are wearing."

"Done for you!" cried Mr. Vinegar delightedly; and trudged off with the
stick, chuckling to himself over his good bargain.

But as he went along a magpie fluttered out of the hedge and sate on a
branch in front of him, and chuckled and laughed as magpies do. "What
are you laughing at?" asked Mr. Vinegar.

"At you, forsooth!" chuckled the magpie, fluttering just a little
further. "At you, Mr. Vinegar, you foolish man--you simpleton--you
blockhead! You bought a cow for forty guineas when she wasn't worth ten,
you exchanged her for bagpipes you couldn't play--you changed the
bagpipes for a pair of gloves, and the pair of gloves for a miserable
stick. Ho, ho! Ha, ha! So you've nothing to show for your forty guineas
save a stick you might have cut in any hedge. Ah, you fool! you
simpleton! you blockhead!"

And the magpie chuckled, and chuckled, and chuckled in such guffaws,
fluttering from branch to branch as Mr. Vinegar trudged along, that at
last he flew into a violent rage and flung his stick at the bird. And
the stick stuck in a tree out of his reach; so he had to go back to his
wif