saucers and plates, which could be seen through the half-open cupboard door.  He looked at his father’s gun, which hung on the wall, beside the portrait of the Danish royal family, and on the geraniums and fuchsias, which blossomed in the window.  And last, he caught sight of an old butterfly-snare that hung on the window frame.  He had hardly set eyes on that butterfly-snare, before he reached over and snatched it and jumped up and swung it alongside the edge of the chest.  He was himself astonished at the luck he had.  He hardly knew how he had managed it—­but he had actually snared the elf.  The poor little chap lay, head downward, in the bottom of the long snare, and could not free himself.

The first moment the boy hadn’t the least idea what he should do with his prize.  He was only particular to swing the snare backward and forward; to prevent the elf from getting a foothold and clambering up.

The elf began to speak, and begged, oh! so pitifully, for his freedom.  He had brought them good luck—­these many years—­he said, and deserved better treatment.  Now, if the boy would set him free, he would give him an old coin, a silver spoon, and a gold penny, as big as the case on his father’s silver watch.

The boy didn’t think that this was much of an offer; but it so happened—­that after he had gotten the elf in his power, he was afraid of him.  He felt that he had entered into an agreement with something weird and uncanny; something which did not belong to his world, and he was only too glad to get rid of the horrid thing.

For this reason he agreed at once to the bargain, and held the snare still, so the elf could crawl out of it.  But when the elf was almost out of the snare, the boy happened to think that he ought to have bargained for large estates, and all sorts of good things.  He should at least have made this stipulation:  that the elf must conjure the sermon into his head.  “What a fool I was to let him go!” thought he, and began to shake the snare violently, so the elf would tumble down again.

But the instant the boy did this, he received such a stinging box on the ear, that he thought his head would fly in pieces.  He was dashed—­first against one wall, then against the other; he sank to the floor, and lay there—­senseless.

When he awoke, he was alone in the cottage.  The chest-lid was down, and the butterfly-snare hung in its usual place by the window.  If he had not felt how the right cheek burned, from that box on the ear, he would have been tempted to believe the whole thing had been a dream.  “At any rate, father and mother will be sure to insist that it was nothing else,” thought he.  “They are not likely to make any allowances for that old sermon, on account of the elf.  It’s best for me to get at that reading again,” thought he.

But as he walked toward the table, he noticed something remarkable.  It couldn’t be possible that the cottage had grown.  But why was he obliged to take so many more steps than usual to get to the table?  And what was the matter with the chair?  It looked no bigger than it did a while ago; but now he had to step on the rung first, and then clamber up in order to reach the seat.  It was the same thing with the table.  He could not look over the top without climbing to the arm of the chair.