Page:Fairy tales and stories (Andersen, Tegner).djvu/126

94 trumpets, piccolo-flute, and trombone in the wisdom-tooth! Grand poet, grand music!"

And then she started the performance.



She looked terrible, although one did not see more of her than her hand, the shadowy, gray, ice-cold hand, with the long, thin, pointed fingers; each of them was an instrument of torture; the thumb and the forefinger were pincers and wrench, the middle finger ended in a pointed awl, the ring finger was an auger, and the little finger a squirt with gnat's poison.

"I 'll teach you the right meter!" she said. "A great poet must have a great toothache, a little poet a little toothache!"