"O dear me!" whispered he, turning pale. "It seems as if there was
nobody but Mr. Toil in the world. Who could have thought of his playing
on a fiddle!"

"This is not your old schoolmaster," observed the stranger, "but another
brother of his, who was bred in France, where he learned the profession
of a fiddler. He is ashamed of his family, and generally calls himself
Monsieur le Plaisir; but his real name is Toil, and those who have known
him best think him still more disagreeable than his brothers."

"Pray let us go a little farther," said Daffydowndilly. "I don't like
the looks of this fiddler at all."

Well, thus the stranger and little Daffydowndilly went wandering along
the highway, and in shady lanes, and through pleasant villages; and
whithersoever they went, behold! there was the image of old Mr. Toil.
He stood like a scarecrow in the cornfields. If they entered a house, he
sat in the parlor; if they peeped into the kitchen, he was there. He
made himself at home in every cottage, and stole, under one disguise or
another, into the most splendid mansions. Everywhere there was sure to
be somebody wearing the likeness of Mr. Toil, and who, as the stranger
affirmed, was one of the old schoolmaster's innumerable brethren.

Little Daffydowndilly was almost tired to death, when he perceived some
people reclining lazily in a shady place, by the side of the road. The
poor child entreated his companion that they might sit down there, and
take some repose.

"Old Mr. Toil will never come here," said lie; "for he hates to see