Page:Lays and Legends of Germany (1834).djvu/248

 fig-tree, put up with the loss and let you go on stealing.’

At last Rubezahl said to the convicted tailor, ‘Go, you bungler, and henceforth accustom your needle to work more closely. Not to take too wide stitches, nor thy fist to take what does not belong to thee. Give to every one his own, and of such of their materials, be they silk, satin, or good broad-cloth, as you don’t use, take none to yourself. Keep to thy lawful wages which you, you ragged rascal, can raise quite high enough, and never more seek to increase thy gains by barefaced purloinings, or I will smite you for your ill deeds, and bid you welcome in somewhat harsher style than I have done this time.’

Upon this he began gradually shuffling back, with his great goat and long nose, and at length left the tailor standing quite alone. He, however, carried his jest upon the tailor thus much further, that whenever he heard a goat bleat, he immediately fancied it was some man calling to him, and saying, ‘Master, master!’

As it afterwards fell out, this tailor, from his not hearing correctly, once called out to a he goat, ‘Sir, shall I make you a suit of clothes?’ The goat gave for answer, ‘Puff’—that is to say, he drove his horns so sharply against the tailor’s ribs, that he puffed.