forbidding countenance."

And he turned away from himself, sat sulky for a few minutes, scraping the earth with his fingers. He covered the hole he had made, as he sang a little song under his breath.

"Do you know what I will tell you, Getzel?" he said to himself a few minutes later. "Let us forgive one another. Let us be friends. The Lord helped me. It was my luck to win so many nuts—may no evil eye harm them! Why should we not enjoy ourselves? Let's crack a few nuts. I should think they are not bad! Well, what do you say, Getzel?"

"Yes, I also think they ought not to be bad," he answered himself. He thrust a nut into his mouth, a second, a third. Each time, he banged his teeth with his fists. The nut was cracked. He took out a fat kernel, cleaned it round, threw it back in his mouth, and chewed it pleasurably with his strong white teeth. He crunched them as a horse crunches oats. He said to himself:

"Would you also like the kernel of a nut, Getzel? Speak out. Do not be ashamed."

"Why not?"

That was how he answered himself. He stretched out his left hand, but only smacked it with his right.

"Will you have a plague?"

"Let it be a plague."

"Then have two."

And he did not cease from cracking the nuts, and crunching them like a horse. It was not enough that he sat eating and gave none to the other, but he said to him:

"Listen, Getzel, to what I will ask you. How, for example, do you feel while I am eating and you are only looking on?"

"How do I feel? May you have such a year!"

"Ah, I see you've got a temper. Here is a kernel for you."

And Getzel's right hand gave the left a kernel. The right turned upside down. The left hand smacked the right. The left hand smacked the right cheek. Then the right hand smacked the left cheek twice. The left hand caught hold of the right lapel of his coat, and the right hand at once tore off the left lapel, from top to bottom. The left hand pulled the right earlock. The right hand gave the left ear a terrible bang.

"Let go of my earlock, Getzel. Take my advice, and let go of my earlock!"

"A plague!"

"Then you'll have no earlock, Getzel."

"Then you, Goyetzel, will have no ear."

"Oh!"

"Oh! Oh!"

. . . . .

Epilogue

For several minutes our Getzel rolled on the ground. Now he lay right side up, and now he lay left side up. He held his pocketful of nuts with both hands.... One minute Goyetzel was victorious. The next it was Getzel, until he got up from the ground covered with dirt, like a pig. He was torn to pieces, had a bleeding ear, and a torn earlock. He took all the nuts from his pocket, and threw them into the mud of the river, far away, behind the mill. He muttered angrily:

"That's right. It's a good deed."

"Neither you—nor me."