time he has awakened the dragon, and it comes out of its cave to see
what is making so much noise so early in the morning.

"Oh, but it is an ugly-looking monster! It is something like a snake,
but more like a giant lizard. It has scales all over its body and it
has a long, shiny tail. It walks clumsily, because its legs are too
small for it, and writhes and wriggles itself along, raising its head
now and then to look about, and breathing out red fire and black smoke
like a blast from a furnace. When its poisonous breath has blown this
smoke away for an instant, it shows two rows of teeth like knives and a
long forked tongue like a snake's, and its jaws are opened wide enough
to take the young man into them and bite him into a dozen pieces at one
snap. Surely if he is ever to learn what fear is now is his chance.

"He sees all this just as plainly as I see it here in the fire; but do
you think he is afraid? Why, he simply laughs at the monster. 'A
pleasant-looking fellow you are,' he says; 'can you teach me what fear
is? If you cannot, I shall prick you with my sword to make you think
about it.'

"Now, this dragon can talk just as well as it could when it was a
giant, so it begins to get angry and tells the impudent young man to
come on and see what he can do with his little tailor's needle of a
sword. He does not have to be asked twice, and in a minute there is
just as lively a fight as you ever saw. The dragon tries to breathe
fire upon the hero and scorch him up to a black cinder, but he does not
want to be a cinder and he runs around to the dragon's side. Then the
dragon tries to catch him with its long slimy tail, so that it may
crush him to a jelly, but he does not want to be a jelly either, so as
soon as the tail comes near enough he gives it a terrible wound with