Lunedì!
Instantly the dancing ceased, all the little hunchback dwarfs became full-grown, well-formed men, and, what was better still, his own hump was gone too, and he felt that he, too, was a well-grown lad.
‘Good people,’ said our hunchback—now hunchbacked no more—‘I thank you much for ridding me of my hump and making me a well-grown lad. Give me now some work to do among you, and let me live with you.’
But the chief of the strange people answered him and said: ‘This favour we owe to you, not you to us; for it was your chiming in with the right word on the right note which destroyed the spell that held us all. And in testimony of our gratitude we give you further this little wand, and you will not need to work with us. Go back and live at home, and if ever anyone beats you as heretofore, you have only to say to it, “At ’em, good stick!”[2] and you will see what it will do for you.’
Then all disappeared, and the boy went home.
‘So you’ve come back, have you?’ said the stepmother. ‘What, and without your hump, too! Where have you left that?’
Then the good boy told her all that had happened, without hiding anything.
‘Do you hear that?’ said the stepmother to her own son. ‘Now go you and get rid of your hump in the same way.’
So the second hunchback went forth, and journeyed on till he came to the lonely hut on the moor.
A tribe of hunchbacks came out and danced round him, and sung—