“Because you have made such a wrong guess.  It is some one ’very different, entirely different,’ Jule.  It is Milton, the blind poet Milton.  Now try another because you failed in this.  My first”—­

“No, no, I must beg for a rest.  It is too much brain work for vacation.  I am going now to see how Castor is after my ride this morning.”  And Julius dashed off to the stable.

“Oh, what a shame!” cried Rolf, “what a pity!  Now there is no one to guess, and I made four splendid charades on my way home.  It is too bad that you are not old enough to guess, Hunne.”

“But I can guess; I am old enough,” said the little fellow rather vexed.

“Well, then try this one, try hard.  Stop playing with the nuts and I will crack some more for you bye and bye.  Now listen: 

    “My first conceals from light of day
     The wanderer on his final way;
     My second sizzling in the pan,
     Makes hungrier still the hungry man;
     My whole, bedecked in trappings gay,
     Goes ambling on the livelong day.”

“A nutcracker,” said Hunne without hesitation.  Julius was his beau-ideal of all that was best, and he thought that if he imitated Jule, and answered quickly the first thing that came into his head, that was guessing.

But Rolf was angry.

“How can you be so stupid, Hunne?  Just think about it a little, can a nut cover some one on his last way?”

“Why, it can cover—­well—­the shell covers it.”

“Nonsense! and a nutcracker can not go ambling all day, can it, you stupid child.”

“Now see, mine can,” said the little boy, who did not like to be called stupid, and he tied his handkerchief round the neck of the long suffering nutcracker and dragged it after him up and down the room, lifting it up now and then at regular intervals.

“Oh well, yes, you think you’re right; and I can’t explain it because you don’t understand anything about it.  Just try to think a little; can you hear a cracker sizzling as its cooks, and will it make you hungry to hear it?”

“If I throw a cracker into the fire, won’t it burn?” said the child, planting himself before Rolf and holding his nutcracker saucily before his eyes.

“Oh, there is no use talking to you,” said Rolf, and was just about leaving the room, but this was not so easily done, for now Hunne was bitten with the mania for riddle-making himself.

“Stop, Rolf,” he cried and grasped his brother by the jacket to hold him.  “My first is not good to drink but to eat—­”

“Oh dear, well, that must be ‘nutcracker’ again,” and Rolf ran off, wrenching himself from his tormentor’s hands.  But the boy followed him, crying, “Wrong, wrong! you are wrong.  Try again, try again!”

Moreover, Wili and Lili came scampering in from the other side, crying out,

“Rolf, Rolf, a riddle! guess! try!” and Lili held up a strip of paper and rattled it before Rolfs eyes, repeating, “Guess, guess, Rolf.”