We shall see how the carrying home of those letters was afterwards to influence the fate of Hans Gensfleisch—­and of the whole world!

Proud was Hans that evening, when after his frugal supper was over, he swept away the crumbs from off their little table, and arranged side by side the letters of his name before his astonished mother—­so that when she compared them with his name upon the slip of parchment which was the register of his birth, she could see that it was really and truly her son’s name that the curious signs signified.  She thought her Hans very clever, and she was pleased.  We are not sure that Hans did not think himself very clever too!

Hans put his letters carefully away in an old leather pouch which had once belonged to his father, and often after his day’s work was done would he pull them out and arrange them on the table or on the hearth before the fire.  He soon found out that besides making his own name, he could put together several other words which he had learned to spell.  Out of the letters which formed Hans Gensfleisch, for instance, he could make the word fisch which is the German for fish—­lang, long—­schein, shine; and it was a great delight to his mother as well as to himself, when he found too that he could put together the letters of her name, Lischen, just as they were also written on the parchment register of his birth.

But he had other discoveries still to make with regard to his letters; for one evening it so happened that as his mother was busy over a boiling of ink that he was to take the next day to Mainz, and had put some of it out in a sort of saucer or bowl upon the table to cool, Hans in playing with his letters let one of them fall into the black color, and pulling it hastily out again he popped it on to the first thing that lay near, which happened to be a piece of chamois leather which was stretched out after being cleaned ready for dyeing.

Scarcely had the letter laid an instant on the white leather than Frau Gensfleisch, turning round, saw with dismay the mischief that was done;—­a large =h= was marked upon the chamois skin!

“Ah Hanschen!  Hanschen!” cried she, “what art thou about—­thou hast ruined thy poor mother.  See, lackaday! the lady of Dolberg’s beautiful chamois skin that was to be dyed of a delicate green for her ladyship’s slippers.  See the ugly black marks that thou hast made upon it!  This comes of all thy letter making and spelling of words and names.  Away with the useless—­things!  Thou canst do better with thy knife and thy time than to be bringing thy mother thus into trouble.”  And in her anger the Frau Gensfleisch swept the precious letters off the table and threw them into the fire.

Hans started forward in dismay to save them but it was too late.  One =g= alone remained of his treasured letters, but it was enough.  He had his knife and he could make others—­and more than that, there was left with him a valuable thought.  The impression left on the white chamois skin by the blackened letter had caused a new idea to flash into his mind—­the idea of Printing.  On that evening, and in that little cottage, in fact, the invention of Printing took place.