and his great delight was, whenever he got an opportunity, to give the
Nis all the annoyance in his power.

Late one evening, when everything was quiet in the house, the Nis took
his little wooden dish, and was just going to eat his supper, when he
perceived that the boy had put the butter at the bottom and had
concealed it, in hopes that he might eat the groute first, and then find
the butter when all the groute was gone. He accordingly set about
thinking how he might repay the boy in kind. After pondering a little he
went up into the loft where a man and the boy were lying asleep in the
same bed. The Nis whisked off the bed clothes, and when he saw the
little boy by the tall man, he said--

"Short and long don't match," and with this word he took the boy by the
legs and dragged him down to the man's feet. He then went up to the head
of the bed, and--

"Short and long don't match," said he again, and then he dragged the boy
up to the man's head. Do what he would he could not succeed in making
the boy as long as the man, but persisted in dragging him up and down in
the bed, and continued at this work the whole night long till it was
broad daylight.

By this time he was well tired, so he crept up on the window stool, and
sat with his legs dangling down into the yard. The house-dog--for all
dogs have a great enmity to the Nis--as soon as he saw him began to bark
at him, which afforded him much amusement, as the dog could not get up
to him. So he put down first one leg and then the other, and teased the
dog, saying--