TWILIGHT LAND

and stared, the smoke began to gather together again,
thicker and thicker, and darker and darker, until it was as
black as ink. Then out from it there stepped one with
eyes that shone like sparks of fire, and who had a coun-
tenance so terrible that the Tailor’s skin quivered and
shrivelled, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth
at the sight of it.

“Who art thou?” said the terrible being, in a voice
that made the very marrow of the poor Tailor’s bones turn
soft from terror.

“Tf you please, sir,” said he, ‘Il am only a little tailor.”

The evil being lifted up both hands and eyes. ‘ How
wonderful,” he cried, ‘that one little tailor can undo in a
moment that which took the wise Solomon a whole day to
accomplish, and in the doing of which he well-nigh broke
the sinews of his heart!” Then, turning to the Tailor,
who stood trembling like a rabbit, ‘‘ Hark thee!” said he.
‘‘For two thousand years I lay there in that bottle, and
no one came nigh to aid me. Thou hast liberated me,
and thou shalt not go unrewarded. Every morning at the
seventh hour I will come to thee, and I will perform for
thee whatever task thou mayest command me. But there
is one condition attached to the agreement, and woe be to
thee if that condition is broken. If any morning I should
come to thee, and thou hast no task for me to do, I shall
wring thy neck as thou mightest wring the neck of a
sparrow.” ‘Thereupon he was gone in an instant, leaving
the little Tailor half dead with terror.

Now it happened that the prime-minister of that country
had left an order with the Tailor for a suit of clothes, so
the next morning, when the Demon came, the little man set
him to work on the bench, with his legs tucked up like a

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