Never before did Charcoal Pete have such dreams as on this night. Now the sullen giant, Dutch Michel, would raise the window and hold out before him with his enormously long arm a purse full of gold pieces, which he chincked together; then he would see the good-natured Little Glass-Man riding about the room on a monstrous green bottle, and he could hear his merry laugh just as it sounded in the Tannenbuehl; then again there was hummed into his left ear:
"In Holland there is gold;
You can have it if you will
For very little pay;
Gold, Gold!"
then in his right ear he heard the song of the "Schatzhauser im grünen Tannenwald," and a soft voice whispered: "Stupid Charcoal Pete! stupid Peter Munk can't think of any thing to rhyme with stehen, and yet was born on Sunday at twelve o'clock. Rhyme, stupid Peter, rhyme!"
He sighed and groaned in his sleep. He tried his best to think of a rhyme for that word; but as he had never made a rhyme in his life, all his efforts in his dream were fruitless. But on awaking with the early dawn, his dream recurred to his mind. He sat himself down behind the table with folded arms, and thought over the whispers he could still hear. "Rhyme, stupid Charcoal Pete, rhyme," said he to himself, meanwhile tapping his forehead with his finger; but the rhyme would not come forth at his bidding.
While he was sitting thus, looking sadly before him with his mind intent on a rhyme for stehen, three fellows passed by the house, one of whom was singing:
"Am Berge that ich stehen
Und schaute in das Thal,