"Isn't he a wonder?" said Pumpernickel.
"He is more than a wonder," I replied. "He is a four-hundred-and-tender"—a joke, by the way, which Hans Pumpernickel did not appreciate.
"Whence do your wizards come?" I asked.
"There is no rule," Pumpernickel answered. "The wisest person in town is generally selected, though, as for Fritz, he studied wizardry under Rosenstein. It was curious the way it happened. Fritz was the son of a farmer, who sent him to school when he was very young, and at the age of five he could read so well that he couldn't be got to leave his books and help gather in the crops. At seven his father, in a fit of anger at what he termed the boy's laziness, turned him out of doors, and Fritz came to Schnitzelhammerstein to seek his fortune. The first position he held was as boy in a butcher-shop, but he had to give that up, because, having gone for weeks without sufficient food, his appetite was a serious menace to the butcher's stock, which the butcher did not discover until Fritz had eaten one whole side of beef. Then he became candy-puller for a molasses-candy-maker, who employed him without counting upon his sweet tooth. This he was compelled to give up after having consumed two weeks' salary's worth of candy in two days. It was this second rebuff that brought him to Rosenstein's notice. While standing in his laboratory one morning the wizard heard a piping little voice cry out, 'Excuse me, sir, but don't you want an assistant?'
"'An assistant what?' asked Rosenstein.
"'An assistant whatever you are,' returned the owner of the little voice, who was none other than Fritz.
"The answer pleased Rosenstein. He recognized wisdom in it; for that it was wise no one will deny.
"'Don't you know what I am?' he asked.
