Well, open a door or a window, so that we can pass in the creature.


THE HEMP-BEATER.

Oh! nay, nay! not such fools! I'm looking at you through a little hole,
and I see neither hunters nor game.

At that point, a drover's boy, a thick-set youth of herculean strength,
came forth from the group in which he had been standing unnoticed, and
held up toward the window a goose all plucked and impaled on a stout
iron spit, decorated with bunches of straw and ribbons.

"Hoity-toity!" cried the hemp-beater, after he had cautiously put out an
arm to feel the bird; "that's not a quail or a partridge, a hare or a
rabbit; it looks like a goose or a turkey. Upon my word, you are noble
hunters! and that game did not make you ride very fast. Go elsewhere,
my knaves! all your falsehoods are detected, and you may as well go home
and cook your supper. You won't eat ours."


THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

Alas! _mon Dieu_! where shall we go to have our game cooked? it's very
little among so many of us; and, besides, we have no fire nor place to
go to. At this time of night, every door is closed, everybody has gone
to bed; you are the only ones who are having a wedding-feast in your
house, and you must be very hardhearted to leave us to freeze outside.
Once more, good people, let us in; we won't cause you any expense. You
see we bring our own food; only a little space at your fireside, a