The Elfin Banquet. 57

RAPP, THE GNOME KING.

“ Many years ago, before the white race came to live on the
banks of our Hudson, a certain Elf King decided to give a tea-
party on one of these very mountains, and to invite a great
prince. He chose a peak over yonder. Do you see the high
hill on the right now covered with snow? Well, there the Elf
gave his banquet.

“Now the guest was no less a person than Rapp, King of
the Gnomes; and if you never heard of him before, it is quite
time he was made known to you. In the first place, he was a
dwarf, with green eyes, a red nose, yellow hair of spun gold,
and a face of copper. His kingdom was in the depths of the
earth ; sometimes he lived in the Rocky Mountains, and again
in the Andes. He did not mind stepping from one continent
to the other in the least. The volcanic fires such as burst
forth from the summits of Vesuvius and Etna were fed by his
subjects, and his domain extended over the rocks which are
richly veined with gold and silver.

“When Rapp felt illhumored he liked to bury himself in
some remote cavern, and the earth then rumbled with his
anger; but he also enjoyed appearing in the upper world oc-
casionally, to see what every one was about. He graciously
accepted the Elf’s invitation to tea. The clever Elf people had

been very busy with the mountain-peak to make it elegant for