“Oh, I’ll soon spend it,” he said. “I could spend a hundred times that much, if I had it.”
“Indeed!” I exclaimed. “No doubt it’s all the better that you haven’t it.”
He did not seem to like this remark, and was afterwards disinclined to talk; so I left him and went over to Otto, who was as busy and cheerful as ever.
“Otto,” said I, “do you know what Hans is hunting all over the pasture? Has he lost anything?”
“No,” Otto answered; “he has not lost anything, and I don’t believe he will find anything, either. Because, even if it is all true, they say you never come across it when you look for it, but it just shows itself all at once, when you’re not expecting.”
“What is it, then?” I asked.
Otto looked at me a moment, and seemed to hesitate. He appeared also to be a little surprised; but probably he reflected that I was a stranger, and could not be expected to know everything, for he finally asked, “Don’t you know, sir, what the shepherd found, somewhere about here, a great many hundred years ago?”
“No,” I answered.
“Not the key-flower?”
Then I did know what he meant, and understood the whole matter in a moment. But I wanted to know what Otto had heard of the story, and therefore said to him, “I wish you would tell me.”