Clement gazed at the midget with confident expectation, but the latter did not move a muscle.
"You shall not fare badly," continued Clement. "I'll see to it that you are fed every day, and you will have so much to do there that the time will not seem long to you. But you mustn't go elsewhere till I give you leave. Now we'll agree as to a signal. So long as I set your food out in a white bowl you are to stay. When I set it out in a blue one you may go."
Clement paused again, expecting the midget to give the sign of approval, but he did not stir.
"Very well," said Clement, "then there's no choice but to show you to the master of this place. Then you'll be put in a glass case, and all the people in the big city of Stockholm will come and stare at you."
This scared the midget, and he promptly gave the signal.
"That was right," said Clement as he cut the cord that bound the midget's hands. Then he hurried toward the door.
The boy unloosed the bands around his ankles and tore away the gag before thinking of anything else. When he turned to Clement to thank him, he had gone.
Just outside the door Clement met a handsome, noble-looking gentleman, who was on his way to a place close by from which there was a beautiful outlook. Clement could not recall having seen the stately old man before, but the latter must surely have noticed Clement sometime when he was playing the fiddle, because he stopped and spoke to him.
"Good day, Clement!" he said. "How do you do? You are not ill, are you?
I think you have grown a bit thin of late."
There was such an expression of kindliness about the old gentleman that
Clement plucked up courage and told him of his homesickness.