"Well, tell me what you would like," said Jules. "Shall I make a fire?"
"No, I will not tell you," said the fairy-man. "You have kept me standing here long enough."
Jules could not see what this had to do with it. He was getting very anxious. If he were only a quick-witted fellow, so as to think of exactly the right thing to do, he might make his fortune. But he could think of nothing more.
"I wish, sir, that you would tell me just what you would like for your cold feet," said Jules, in an entreating tone, "for I shall be very glad to give it to you, if it is at all possible."
"If your ax were half as dull as your brain," said the dwarf, "you would not cut much wood. Good-day!"—and he skipped away behind the wood-pile.
Jules jumped up and looked after him, but he was gone. These fairy-people have a strange way of disappearing.
Jules was not married and had no home of his own. He lived with a good couple who had a little house and an only daughter, and that was about the sum of their possessions. The money Jules paid for his living helped them a little, and they managed to get along. But they were quite poor.
Jules was not poor. He had no one but himself to support, and he had laid by a sum of money for himself when he should be too old to work.
But you never saw a man so disappointed as he was that evening as he sat by the fire after supper.
He had told the family all about his meeting with the dwarf, and lamented again and again that he had lost such a capital chance of making his fortune.