at contradiction.

Findelkind's head drooped, and he went slowly over the bridge,
forgetting that he ought to have thanked the toll-taker for a free
passage. The world seemed to him very difficult. How had Findelkind done
when he had come to bridges? and oh, how had Findelkind done when he had
been hungry? For this poor little Findelkind was getting very hungry,
and his stomach was as empty as was his wallet.

A few steps brought him to the Goldenes Dachl. He forgot his hunger and
his pain, seeing the sun shine on all that gold and the curious painted
galleries under it. He thought it was real, solid gold. Real gold laid
out on a house-roof, and the people all so poor! Findelkind began to
muse, and wonder why everybody did not climb up there and take a tile
off and be rich. But perhaps it would be wicked. Perhaps God put the
roof there with all that gold to prove people. Findelkind got
bewildered. If God did such a thing, was it kind?

His head seemed to swim, and the sunshine went round and round with him.
There went by him just then a very venerable-looking old man with silver
hair: he was wrapped in a long cloak.

Findelkind pulled at the cloak gently, and the old man looked down.
"What is it, my boy?" he asked.

Findelkind answered, "I came out to get gold: may I take it off that
roof?"

"It is not gold, child: it is gilding."

"What is gilding?"

"It is a thing made to look like gold: that is all."

"It is a lie, then!"

The old man smiled: "Well, nobody thinks so. If you like to put it so,
perhaps it is. What do you want gold for, you wee thing?"

"To build a monastery and house the poor."

The old man's face scowled and grew dark, for he was a Lutheran pastor
from Bavaria. "Who taught you such trash?" he said crossly.

"It is not trash: it is faith."

And Findelkind's face began to burn and his blue eyes to darken and
moisten. There was a little crowd beginning to gather, and the crowd was
beginning to laugh. There were some soldiers and rifle-shooters in the
throng, and they jeered and joked, and made fun of the old man in the
long cloak, who grew angry then with the child. "You are a little
idolater and a little impudent sinner," he said wrathfully, and shook
the boy by the shoulder and went away; and the throng that had gathered
round had only poor Findelkind left to tease.

He was a very poor little boy indeed to look at, with his sheepskin
tunic and his bare feet and legs, and his wallet