Clement gazed at the midget with confident expectation, but the latter did not move a muscle.

“You shall not fare badly,” continued Clement.  “I’ll see to it that you are fed every day, and you will have so much to do there that the time will not seem long to you.  But you mustn’t go elsewhere till I give you leave.  Now we’ll agree as to a signal.  So long as I set your food out in a white bowl you are to stay.  When I set it out in a blue one you may go.”

Clement paused again, expecting the midget to give the sign of approval, but he did not stir.

“Very well,” said Clement, “then there’s no choice but to show you to the master of this place.  Then you’ll be put in a glass case, and all the people in the big city of Stockholm will come and stare at you.”

This scared the midget, and he promptly gave the signal.

“That was right,” said Clement as he cut the cord that bound the midget’s hands.  Then he hurried toward the door.

The boy unloosed the bands around his ankles and tore away the gag before thinking of anything else.  When he turned to Clement to thank him, he had gone.

Just outside the door Clement met a handsome, noble-looking gentleman, who was on his way to a place close by from which there was a beautiful outlook.  Clement could not recall having seen the stately old man before, but the latter must surely have noticed Clement sometime when he was playing the fiddle, because he stopped and spoke to him.

“Good day, Clement!” he said.  “How do you do?  You are not ill, are you?  I think you have grown a bit thin of late.”

There was such an expression of kindliness about the old gentleman that Clement plucked up courage and told him of his homesickness.

“What!” exclaimed the old gentleman.  “Are you homesick when you are in Stockholm?  It can’t be possible!” He looked almost offended.  Then he reflected that it was only an ignorant old peasant from Haelsingland that he talked with—­and so resumed his friendly attitude.

“Surely you have never heard how the city of Stockholm was founded?  If you had, you would comprehend that your anxiety to get away is only a foolish fancy.  Come with me to the bench over yonder and I will tell you something about Stockholm.”

When the old gentleman was seated on the bench he glanced down at the city, which spread in all its glory below him, and he drew a deep breath, as if he wished to drink in all the beauty of the landscape.  Thereupon he turned to the fiddler.

“Look, Clement!” he said, and as he talked he traced with his cane a little map in the sand in front of them.  “Here lies Uppland, and here, to the south, a point juts out, which is split up by a number of bays.  And here we have Soermland with another point, which is just as cut up and points straight north.  Here, from the west, comes a lake filled with islands:  It is Lake Maelar.  From the east comes another body of water, which can barely squeeze in between the islands and islets.  It is the East Sea.  Here, Clement, where Uppland joins Soermland and Maelaren joins the East Sea, comes a short river, in the centre of which lie four little islets that divide the river into several tributaries—­one of which is called Norristroem but was formerly Stocksund.