And as he so spake, lo! instead of the goldsmith's face, there was a horrid-looking fox's face snarling and showing its teeth at Tussmann from under the goldsmith's bonnet.
The Clerk of the Privy Chancery fell back in his chair in the profoundest terror.
The old Jew did not seem to be in the least degree surprised by this transformation; rather, he had suddenly lost his mood of ill-temper altogether. He laughed, and cried, "Aha! capital sport! But there's nothing to be made by those arts. I know better ones. I can do things which were always beyond you, Leonhard."
"Let us see," said the goldsmith, who had assumed his human countenance again--"let us see what you can do."
The old man took from his pocket a large black radish, trimmed it and scraped it with a little knife, which also came from his pocket, shredded it into thin strips, and laid them in order on the table. Then he struck each of them a blow with his clenched fist; when they sprung up, one by one, ringing, in the shape of gold coins, which he took up and threw across to the goldsmith. But as soon as the goldsmith took hold of one of those coins, it fell to dust, in a little shower of crackling sparks of fire. This infuriated the old man. He went on striking the radish-shavings into gold pieces faster and faster, hitting them harder and harder, and they crackled away in the goldsmith's hand with fierier and fierier sparks.
Tussmann was nearly out of his senses with fear and agitation. At last he pulled himself together out of the swoon into which he was nearly falling, and said, in trembling accents: "Really, I must beg, with all due courtesy and respect, to say that I feel that I should much prefer to bid 'Good-evening' on this occasion." And grasping his hat and stick, he bolted out of the room as quickly as he could. When he reached the street, he heard those two uncanny people setting up a shout of screaming laughter after him, which made the blood run cold in his veins.
CHAPTER II.
In which it is related how, by the intervention of a cigar which would not draw, a love-affair was set agoing between a lady and gentleman who had previously knocked their heads together.
The manner in which young Edmund Lehsen, the painter, made acquaintance with the mysterious goldsmith, Leonhard, was somewhat different to that in which Tussmann had done so.
Edmund was one day sketching a beautiful group of trees in a lonely part of the Thiergarten, when Leonhard came up, and, without any ceremony, looked over his shoulder at what he was doing. Edmund did not disturb himself, but went on with his sketch, till the goldsmith cried--