“Why——” I began, and the Kobold held up his hand to stop me, puckering his baby face into a dreadful frown.
“Why? Why? Why?” he mimicked. “How like the child of mortal man! Everything has to tell its reason—you rob the peach of its velvet bloom that you may find the secret of its ruddy splendour, and the fairy gems on the grass at dawn are to you but water distilled from earth! You would know how the tide finds a way to turn, why the light of the stars transcends your rush-lights! Elves and Fairies and such-like things are driven away by your curiosity, as the Heinzelmänchen were by Rosetta.”
I was going to ask who Rosetta might be, but I remembered just in time that this would be another question. The Kobold chose a more comfortable seat, and told me of his own accord.
“Toward the end of the eighteenth century,” he began, “the Heinzelmänchen, took up their abode in the city of Köln, where Johann Farina distilled the sweet-scented waters now famous all over the world. When first he blended the fragrant oils of bergamot, citron, orange and rosemary, it was we who whispered to him in what proportion he should mix them, and how to imprison their lasting perfume. Not only him did we help, but wherever we came across a worthy fellow who was poor but honest, we gave him a lift up; such was Rudolph the tailor, whom we found when a lad on the steps of the great Cathedral, without a pfennig in his pocket, and with a wolf inside him big enough to swallow a little pig. When we saw how readily he returned a thaler that rolled to his feet to the feeble old woman who had dropped it, though he might well have said he had not seen it fall, we took him to our hearts, and swore to befriend him.
‘So!’ we said, one to the other. ‘Rudolph is worthy to be our comrade. He is a good lad, and henceforth we will see that he does not want.’
The first thing to be done was to procure him decent clothing, for no one would employ him while he went in rags. We did this by pointing him out to the wife of a rich merchant, who fancied she saw in his pinched white face a likeness to the son she had lost long since.
Touched by the poor lad’s poverty, she gave him a suit of clothes which had lain by for many a day, and on finding he was an orphan, apprenticed him to a tailor. The lad worked well. We took it in turns to sit beside him, showing him just where to place his needle, so that his seams were always neat, and guiding his scissors so that he cut the cloth to the best advantage. So skilful did he become that, when his time was out, his master begged him to stay on with him as head assistant, and gave him a good wage.