alked straight up to the crucible,
drew it out of the furnace, and looked in. The gold was all melted,
and its surface as smooth and polished as a river; but instead of
reflecting little Gluck's head, as he looked in, he saw meeting his
glance from beneath the gold the red nose and sharp eyes of his old
friend of the mug, a thousand times redder and sharper than ever he
had seen them in his life.

"Come, Gluck, my boy," said the voice out of the pot again, "I'm all
right; pour me out."

But Gluck was too much astonished to do anything of the kind.

"Pour me out, I say," said the voice rather gruffly.

Still Gluck couldn't move.

"_Will_ you pour me out?" said the voice passionately. "I'm too hot."

By a violent effort, Gluck recovered the use of his limbs, took hold
of the crucible, and sloped it so as to pour out the gold. But instead
of a liquid stream, there came out, first, a pair of pretty little
yellow legs, then some coat tails, then a pair of arms stuck akimbo,
and, finally, the well-known head of his friend the mug; all which
articles, uniting as they rolled out, stood up energetically on the
floor, in the shape of a little golden dwarf, about a foot and a half
high.

"That's right!" said the dwarf, stretching out first his legs, and
then his arms, and then shaking his head up and down, and as far round
as it would go, for five minutes without stopping; apparently with the
view of ascertaining if he were quite correctly put together, while
Gluck stood contemplating him in speechless amazement. He was dressed
in a stashed doublet of spun gold, so fine in its texture, that the
prismatic colours gleamed over it, as if on a surface of
mother-of-pearl; and, over this brilliant doublet, his hair and beard
fell full halfway to the ground, in waving curls, so exquisitely
delicate that Gluck could hardly tell where they ended; they seemed to
melt into air. The features of the face, however, were by no means
finished with the same delicacy; they were rather coarse, slightly
inclining to coppery in complexion, and indicative, in expression, of
a very pertinacious and intractable disposition in their small
proprietor. When the dwarf had finished his self-examination, he
turned his small eyes full on Gluck, and stared at him deliberately
for a minute or two. "No, it wouldn't, Gluck, my boy," said the little
man.

This was certainly rather an abrupt and unconnected mode of commencing
conversation. It might indeed