“I wish to dance better than the King of Dancers.”
“One.”
“Secondly, I would always have as much money in my pocket as ‘Fat Hesekiel.’”
“Oh, you poor lad!” said the gnome sadly. “What despicable things to wish for! To dance well, and have money to gamble! What is your third wish?”
“I should like to own the finest glass factory in the forest.”
“O stupid Charcoal Peter! you should have wished for wisdom. Wealth is useless without wisdom to use it. Here are two thousand guldens. Go.”
Peter returned home. At the frolics at the inn, he surpassed the King of Dancers in dancing, and he was hailed with great admiration by the young. He began to gamble at the ale-houses, and was able to produce as much money as Fat Hesekiel himself. People wondered. He next ordered a glass factory to be built, and in a few months Peter Munk was rich and famous and envied. People said he had found a hidden treasure.
But Peter did not know how to use his money. He spent it at the alehouse; and at last, when the money in the pockets of Fat Hesekiel, for some reason, was low, he was unable to pay his debts, and the bailiffs came to take him to prison.
