"Oh, that's for my horse's skin. I sold it yesterday morning."
"That was well paid for, indeed," said Great Claus. He ran home, took an ax, and hit all his four horses on the head; then he flayed them and carried their skins off to the town.
"Hides! hides! who'll buy my hides?" he cried through the streets.
All the shoemakers and tanners in the town came running up and asked him how much he wanted for his hides.
"A bushel of money for each," said Great Claus.
"Are you mad?" they all said. "Do you think we have money by the bushel?"
"Skins! skins! who'll buy them?" he shouted again, and the shoemakers took up their straps, and the tanners their leather aprons, and began to beat Great Claus.
"Hides! hides!" they called after him. "Yes, we'll hide you and tan you. Out of the town with him," they shouted. And Great Claus made the best haste he could to get out of the town, for he had never yet been thrashed as he was being thrashed now.
"Little Claus shall pay for this," he said, when he got home. "I'll kill him for it."
Little Claus's old grandmother had just died in his house. She had often been harsh and unkind to him, but now that she was dead he felt quite grieved. He took the dead woman and laid her in his warm bed to see if she would not come to life again. He himself intended to sit in a corner all night. He had slept that way before.