He examined, one after another, his gallery of pictures, his cabinet of antiques, his collections of medals, insects, shells, his library, each of them a wonder and a delight quite new to him.
He was especially pleased at the admirable judgment with which the books had been chosen. The finest works in literature, the most useful in science had been gathered together for the entertainment and instruction of a long life—among them the Adventures of the ingenious Don Quixote; fairy tales of every kind, with beautiful engravings; a collection of curious and amusing travels and voyages (those of Gulliver and Robinson Crusoe so far the most authentic); capital almanacks, full of diverting anecdotes and infallible information as to the phases of the moon and the best times for sowing and planting; numberless treatises, very simply and clearly written, on agriculture, gardening, angling, netting game, and the art of taming nightingales—in short, all one can wish for when one has learned to value books and the spirit of their authors. For there have been no other scholars, no other philosophers, no other poets, and for this unquestionable reason, that all learning, all philosophy, all poetry are to be found in their pages, and to be found only there. I can answer for that.
While he was thus taking account of his wealth, the Luck of the Bean-rows was struck by the reflection of himself in one of the mirrors with which all the apartments were adorned. If the glass was not fooling him, he must have grown—oh, wonder of wonders!—more than three feet since yesterday. And the brown moustache which darkened his upper lip plainly showed that he was passing from sturdy boyhood to youthful manliness.
He was puzzling over this extraordinary change, when, to his great regret, a costly time-piece, between two pier-glasses, enabled him to solve the riddle. One of the hands pointed to the date of the year, and the Luck saw, without a shadow of doubt, that he had grown six years older.
“Six years!” he exclaimed. “Unfortunate creature that I am! My poor parents have died of old age, and perhaps in want. Oh, pity me, perhaps they died of grief, fretting over the loss of me. What must they have thought in their last hours of my deserting them or of the misfortune that had befallen me!
“Now I understand, hateful carriage, how you came to travel so fast; days and days were swallowed up in your minutes. Off, then; off, chick pea!” he continued as he took the magic coach from the wallet and flung it out of the window; “out of my sight, and fly so far that no eye may ever look on you again!”
And to tell the truth, so far as I know, no one has ever since cast eyes on a chick pea in the shape of a post-chaise that went fifty leagues an hour.