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 will you pay?" inquired Peter. The wages were a bushel of dollars for six months' service. "Before engaging you," pursued the man, "I wish to have a clear agreement. When the cock crows in the morning you must go to work and do all that I say. I like to keep my servants as long as possible, but from the beginning I engage them only for six months, and by the time the cuckoo begins to tune his voice our agreement is over. Then there is one more thing: I am disposed, myself, to be glad and contented, and do not like to have sour faces around me; therefore I agree with my hired men that he who first becomes angry shall have a sound thrashing. If I become angry first, I at once give the man his wages, and he may go; but if he shows ill-temper first, I give him his whipping and then throw him out of the door."

Peter considered this a singular agreement, so he thought it over before entering upon it. The man was not at all good looking. His mouth reached as far as his ears on both sides, and never had Peter seen a nose of such size and length. But as he smiled pleasantly and blinked so joyfully with his small, half-closed eyes, the boy thought that he was, perhaps, only playing a joke on him; besides, the wages were extraordinarily high. He closed the agreement and at once entered upon his duties. Climbing into the carriage, he drove along with the man until they reached the farm where his future master lived. As it was towards evening when