Page:Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales (1845).djvu/219

The prisoner was delighted to have obtained permission to speak, trusting as he did that a candid narration of the events of his life would appease the Gnome’s anger, at least so far as to lead to a mitigation of the chastisement he might have to endure. “I formerly,” he commenced, “lived poorly enough, on the fruits of my own labour, in the town of Lauban, where I followed the occupation of a purse maker; they called me poor Kunz, and well they might, for I found honest industry to be an altogether unprofitable business. Although my purses found a good sale, there being a notion current that money did well in them, seeing that I, the maker, was a seventh son, and must therefore have a lucky hand, I experienced no such luck in my own case, for my purse was always as empty as the stomach of a rigid Catholic on a fast day. I would here remark that if my customers really preserved their money so well in purses of my manufacture, this, in my opinion, was in no degree owing to the lucky hand of the maker, nor to the especial goodness of the work, but to the material of which they were made; they were of leather. Your Lordship must know that a purse of leather always preserves and improves money better than one of silk netting; for he who is content with the former is rarely a spendthrift, but one who, as the saying is, draws his purse-strings tight. Open-work silk