The shoemaker and his wife laughed heartily as they remembered how funny the elves were. The wife confessed that the garments didn't fit closely, though she made them like her husband's, only smaller.
"Elves are not so square, are they?" asked Miss Muffet.
"No," said the shoemaker's wife; "but their clothes are. That's the only pattern I have."
"I suppose they are coming to the party? I sent a general invitation to Elf-land. There is to be elfin music and a frolic for them. I thought they might like it better to have their own games. Your elves can't say they have nothing to wear, because that wouldn't be true."
But though she looked everywhere for them, nowhere could she see the little elves in square coats and trousers. When the refreshments were served, Mr. Spider noticed that everything went remarkably smoothly, and there was more of all kinds of provisions than he had ordered. He said he had no doubt but that the little elves were helping in the kitchen.
"It would be just like them; the little dears!" said Miss Muffet.
The shoemaker felt very much more at home when he met a young fellow named Hans who had come from the same village. He was not the Hans who married Grettel, but the one whom Miss Muffet had often heard of because he traded a horse for a cow, the cow for a pig, the pig for a goose, and so on, all the way home. This caused a good deal of talk in the neighborhood, and some of the villagers thought he wasn't much of a business man.
Hans, however, was perfectly satisfied with himself, and was quite ready to talk.
"The secret of being a trader," he said, "is to be quick about it. You must not stop to think: that's where you lose time. If I had stopped to think, I should have brought the horse home with me, and I might have had it on my hands yet. There are ever so many people grumbling about the care of their property; they say it is a burden to them. I tell them that it's all their own fault. If they kept their eyes open, they would find plenty of ways of getting rid of it."
Hans had such a shrewd twinkle in his eyes that Miss Muffet felt sure that he would always get the best of a bargain, no matter how it turned out.