as have been sailing over the village to-day. Whales and astronomers,
kings and crocodiles, and nobody knows what. They all sail from this
direction, and we have come to see what is going off here. Can it be
you, Gaspar, who are raising such a wind? Did you draw all these
lively things in the sand, and blow them up into clouds?"

Gaspar said he knew nothing about the clouds, but he thought it was
getting rather dark, and was as much surprised as any of the boys, to
see what grand figures he had thrown up into the sky. He begged his
new friend to show the boys his box; but he said, "No, it was not for
them," and put it into his pocket.

They all laughed at it, and said such great creatures never came out
of that little paint box.

Gaspar went back to the village with the boys, and for a while was
quite contented with the remembrance of what he had seen; but at last
his old love of travelling awoke in him. He did not feel satisfied to
have seen wonderful nations and animals merely passing through a show
box, but wanted to see them in living reality; but how was he to get
by the little magician? On foot he knew it was impossible, but thought
he might succeed on a fleet horse. So he went to his friend Conrad,
and offered him the apple which could never be eaten, for his good
cantering horse. Most boys are fond of red apples, but Conrad cared
for nothing else but apples and apple dumplings, not even for his
cantering horse, and readily exchanged him for Gaspar's apple, which
he could be constantly eating. Off rode Gaspar with whip and spur,
sure now that the little gray man could not stop him.

As he cantered along the road very grandly, there were those bright