Several other courses did he try, but all in vain. His temper was too
gentle to struggle with their obstinacy, and he commenced to despair of
ever accomplishing his dearest wish. He began now to hate the little
people of whom he had before been so fond. He kept away from their
banquets and dances, and associated with none but Elizabeth, and ate and
drank quite solitary in his chamber. In short, he became almost a
hermit, and sank into moodiness and melancholy.

While in this temper, as he was taking a solitary walk in the evening,
and, to divert his melancholy, was flinging the stones that lay in his
path against each other, he happened to break a tolerably large one, and
out of it jumped a toad. The moment John saw the ugly animal he caught
him up in ecstasy, and put him in his pocket and ran home, crying--

"Now I have her! I have my Elizabeth! Now you shall get it, you little
mischievous rascals!"

On getting home he put the toad into a costly silver casket, as if it
was the greatest treasure.

To account for John's joy, you must know that Klas Starkwolt had often
told him that the underground people could not endure any ill smell, and
that the sight, or even the smell, of a toad made them faint, and suffer
the most dreadful tortures, and that by means of one of those odious
animals one could compel them to do anything. Hence there are no bad
smells to be found in the whole glass empire, and a toad is a thing
unheard of there. This toad must certainly have been enclosed in the
stone from the creation, as it were, for the sake of John and Elizabeth.

Resolved to try the effect of his toad, John took the casket under his