The poor brother, never thinking, told him all—­the whole truth about little Master Misery and the pit full of gold, and how Misery was shut in there under the big stone.

The merchant brother listened, and did not forget a word.  He could hardly bear himself for envy, and as for his wife, she was worse.  She looked at the peasant’s wife with her beautiful head-dress, and she bit her lips till they bled.

As soon as they could, they said good-bye and drove off home.

The merchant brother could not bear the thought that his brother was richer than he.  He said to himself, “I will go to the field, and move the stone, and let Master Misery out.  Then he will go and tear my brother to pieces for shutting him in; and his riches will not be of much use to him then, even if Misery does not give them to me as a token of gratitude.  Think of my brother daring to show off his riches to me!”

So he drove off to the field, and came at last to the big stone.  He moved the stone on one side, and then bent over the pit to see what was in it.

He had scarcely put his head over the edge before Misery sprang up out of the pit, seated himself firmly on his shoulders, squeezed his neck between his little wiry legs, and pulled out handfuls of his hair.

“Scream away!” cried little Master Misery.  “You tried to kill me, shutting me up in there, while you went off and bought fine clothes.  You tried to kill me, and came to feast your eyes on my corpse.  Now, whatever happens, I’ll never leave you again.”

“Listen, Misery!” screamed the merchant.  “Ai, ai! stop pulling my hair.  You are choking me.  Ai!  Listen.  It was not I who shut you in under the stone....”

“Who was it, if it was not you?” asked Misery, tugging out his hair, and digging his knees into the merchant’s throat.

“It was my brother.  I came here on purpose to let you out.  I came out of pity.”

Misery tugged the merchant’s hair, and twisted the merchant’s ears till they nearly came off.

“Liar, liar!” he shouted in his little, wretched, angry voice.  “You tricked me once.  Do you think you’ll get the better of me again by a clumsy lie of that kind?  Now then.  Gee up!  Home we go.”

And so the rich brother went trotting home, crying with pain; while little Master Misery sat firmly on his shoulders, pulling at his hair.

Instantly Misery was at his old tricks.

“You seem to have bought a good deal with the gold,” he said, looking at the merchant’s house.  “We’ll see how far it will go.”  And every day he rode the rich merchant to the tavern, and made him drink up all his money, and his house, his clothes, his horses and carts and sledges—­everything he had—­until he was as poor as his brother had been in the beginning.

The merchant thought and thought, and puzzled his brain to find a way to get rid of him.  And at last one night, when Misery had groaned himself to sleep, the merchant went out into the yard and took a big cart wheel and made two stout wedges of wood, just big enough to fit into the hub of the wheel.  He drove one wedge firmly in at one end of the hub, and left the wheel in the yard with the other wedge, and a big hammer lying handy close to it.