"Good-day, neighbor!" answered Peter, solemnly.
"Why are you so downcast?" asked Hans.
"Downcast! Have you no troubles," retorted Peter, "that you cannot understand why people look downcast?"
"I?" said jovial Hans. "I've only one trouble in the world, and that does not trouble me. My wife complains because I have become so stout."
"Happy man!" exclaimed Peter. "My friends complain because I am so thin."
"My friends say it makes me move too slowly," said Hans.
"My wife upbraids me," returned Peter, "because I move so very quickly."
"Suppose we change bodies!" said they both in a breath. And they changed.
Again, in a few months, Hans and Peter met one fine morning; and Hans was again large and stout, while Peter had become thin and slim.
"What have you done to my body?" asked Hans.