"As the belief became general, Simon grew irritable and wild. He cursed, and stormed, and raved, till his people trembled for their master's reason. Vexation ate his flesh away, and Avarice, which had gained entire possession of His soul, drove him restlessly about in the endeavour to save and to secure as much as still remained to him. At night, with his sullenly-burning lamp, he sped from room to room, bearing in his two quivering hands leathern purses of money; then shutting himself up in the most secret of his hiding-places, he counted his dollars again and again—and with such haste and fear, that the cold sweat dropped from him as he laboured. Horrible to relate, as often as he added the same sums together, so often he found the total less. Oh, it was like nothing else than the devil's own game; for the money, unperceived by mortal eye, melted in the pure air!
"Unfortunately for Simon, he was a man of violent passions, and on one occasion his fury betrayed him into blasphemous exclamations. Sadly beside himself, he swore, with a most fearful oath, that he was ready and willing to make over body and soul to the devil, or even to his old gossip the fiddler, provided either of them would undertake to restore to him the mass of wealth that had so unaccountably escaped from him.
"There is an old proverb that runs—'Give the devil your little finger, and he will take your whole hand.' And the truth of this saying Simon was now about to experience; for he had scarcely brought his impious words to a close, before the fiddler popped into his presence, too willing to enter into any arrangement which the reckless farmer was silly enough to propose. 'Here I am, gossip!' said the cunning little rascal with well-assumed affability, 'and ready to do your will. Not that I shall ask your body and soul. I am not so greedy. Bequeath me your head at your death, you shall have all you ask, and I'll be satisfied.'
"'Go to the devil, you bandy-legged monster!' screamed Michael in his fury, poking his lamp at the same time under the Dwarf's beard, so that the vapoury phantom was nigh being in a blaze.
"'Don't put yourself out, Mike; don't put yourself out!' said Klaus patronizingly, seating himself upon a chest, and then tuning his fiddle. 'Getting into a passion won't bring the shiners back! What do you say, gossip, to a tune? Will you dance if I play? I have improved wonderfully, I can tell you, since I left this half-and-half sort of a world. Nobody dances now to my touch who doesn't praise it to the skies. You can't care much for dancing at your time of life, I know; and yet, if you could get a ducat for every step, and one or two for every hop, you would put your best foot forward, and try to do something any how— wouldn't you?'
"'What, what, what? What's that you say?' cried Simon, squeezing his empty money-bags. 'A ducat for every step! two for a hop! Kremnitz or Dutch, my dear old friend?'
"'Kremnitz, old gentleman, and full weight too!' replied the Dwarf. 'But,' added the little monster, 'about the head, Mike—what do you say, am I to get it?'"
Simon put his hand to his hair—involuntarily.
"'Oh! I am no Turk, gossip!' said the fiddler. 'I sha'n't scalp you. I'll gild every hair that you have on your crown; but your pate I must have, or else I can say nothing about the ducats.'
"'But what do you mean to do with it, dear ducat—dear Klaus, I mean?' asked the bewildered Mike.