"
When the farmer heard this he was nearly out of his wits with delight,
and his hands shook so that the flour spilled all about the larder
floor.
"Thank you, dear sir," he said; "it's a bargain, and I agree to it. My
wife hears us, and is witness. Wife! wife!" he cried, running into the
kitchen, "I am to have anything under the sun that I choose to ask
for. I think of asking for neighbour Merryweather's estate, but this
is a chance never likely to happen again, and I should like to make a
wise choice, and that is not easy at a moment's notice."
"You will have a week to think it over in," said the dwarf, who had
come in behind him; "I must be off now, so give me my flour, and come
to the hill behind your house seven days hence at midnight, and you
shall have your share of the bargain."
So the farmer tied up the flour-sack, and helped the dwarf with it on
to his back, and as he did so he began thinking how easily the bargain
had been made, and casting about in his mind whether, he could not get
more where he had so easily got much.
"And half a stone of flour is half a stone of flour," he muttered to
himself, "and whatever it may do with thriftless people, it goes a
long way in our house. And there's the bag--and a terrible lot spilled
on the larder floor--and the string to tie it with, which doubtless
he'll never think of returning--and my time, which must be counted,
and nothing whatever for it all for a week to come.
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