94 OLE LUK-OlE.

And in a moment he was dressed like the spiciest of tin
soldiers. :

“Will your honour not be kind enough to take a seat in your
Mamma’s thimble?” asked the Mouse. “Then I shall have the
pleasure of drawing you.”

“Will the young lady really take so much trouble?” cried
Hjalmar.

And thus they drove to the Mouse’s wedding. First they
came into a long passage beneath the boards, which was only
just so high that they could drive through it in the thimble; and
the whole passage was lit up with rotten wood.

‘Is there not a delicious smell here?” observed the Mouse.
“ The entire road has been greased with bacon-rinds, and there
can be nothing more exquisite.”

Now they came into the festive hall. On the right hand stood
all the little lady mice; and they whispered and giggled as if
they were making fun of each other; on the left stood all the
gentlemen mice, stroking their whiskers with their fore paws;
and in the centre of the hall the bridegroom and bride might be
seen standing in a hollow cheese-rind, and kissing each other
terribly before all the guests; for this was the betrothal, and the
marriage was to follow immediately.

More and more strangers kept flocking in. One mouse was
nearly treading another to death; and the happy couple had
stationed themselves just in the little doorway, so that one could
neither come in nor go out. Like the passage, the room had
been greased with bacon-rinds, and that was the entire banquet;
but for the dessert a pea was produced, in which a mouse belong-
ing to the family had bitten the name of the betrothed pair—that
is to say, the first letter of the name: that was something quite
out of the common way.

All the mice said it was a beautiful wedding, and that the
entertainment had been very agreeable. And then Hjalmar
drove home again: he had really been in grand company; but
he had been obliged to crawl through a mouse-hole. to make
himself little, and to put on a tin soldier’s uniform.

FRIDAY.

“Tt is wonderful how many grown-up people there are who
would be very glad to haveme!” said Ole Luk-Oie; “especially
those who have done something wrong. ‘Good little Ole,’ they
say to me, ‘we cannot close our eyes, and so we lie all night and
see our evil deeds, which sit upon the bedstead like ugly little
sob'ins, and throw hot water over us; will you not come and
drive them away, so that we may have a good sleep?’—and then
they sigh deeply—‘ we would really be glad to pay for it. Good