the damp mud below, and feared that his end was nigh, for how he was ever to get out he could not see. But his pipe happened to be in his pocket, still half full, and he thought to himself, "I may as well make an end of smoking you out: it is the last pleasure I shall have in this world." So he lit it at the blue light, and began to smoke.
Up rose a cloud of smoke, and on a sudden a little black dwarf, with a hump on his back and a feather in his cap, was seen making his way through the midst of it. "What do you want with me, soldier?" said he. "Nothing at all, manikin," answered he. But the dwarf said, "I am bound to serve you in everything, as lord and master of the blue light." "Then, as you are so very civil, be so good first of all as to help me out of this well!" No sooner said than done: the dwarf took him by the hand and drew him up, and the blue light of course came up with him. "Now do me another piece of kindness," said the soldier: "pray let that old lady take my place in the well!" When the dwarf had lodged the witch safely at the bottom, they began to ransack her treasures; and Kurt made bold to carry off as much of the gold and silver in her house as he well could: for he was quite sure that whose soever it had once been, he had at least as good right to it now as she had. Then the dwarf said, "If you should chance at any time to want me, you have nothing to do but to light your pipe at the blue light, and I shall soon be with you."
The soldier was not a little pleased at his good luck; and he went to the best inn in the first town he came to, and ordered some fine clothes to be made, and a handsome room to be got ready for him. When all was ready, he called the imp of the blue light to him, and said, "The
