Gluck summoned all his energies, walked straight up to the crucible, drew it out of the furnace and looked in.  The gold was all melted, and its surface as smooth and polished as a river; but instead of its reflecting little Gluck’s head, as he looked in, he saw meeting his glance, from beneath the gold, the red nose and the sharp eyes of his old friend of the mug, a thousand times redder and sharper than ever he had seen them in his life.

“Come, Gluck, my boy,” said the voice out of the pot again, “I’m all right; pour me out.”

But Gluck was too much astonished to do anything of the kind.

“Pour me out, I say,” said the voice, rather gruffly.

Still Gluck couldn’t move.

“Will you pour me out?” said the voice, passionately.  “I’m too hot.”

By a violent effort, Gluck recovered the use of his limbs, took hold of the crucible, and sloped it so as to pour out the gold.  But instead of a liquid stream, there came out, first, a pair of pretty little yellow legs, then some coat-tails, then a pair of arms stuck akimbo, and, finally, the well-known head of his friend the mug; all which articles, uniting as they rolled out, stood up energetically on the floor, in the shape of a little golden dwarf, about a foot and a half high.

“That’s right!” said the dwarf, stretching out first his legs, and then his arms, and then shaking his head up and down, and as far round as it would go, for five minutes, without stopping; apparently with the view of ascertaining if he were quite correctly put together, while Gluck stood contemplating him in speechless amazement.  He was dressed in a slashed doublet of spun gold, so fine in its texture that the prismatic colors gleamed over it, as if on a surface of mother-of-pearl; and over this brilliant doublet his hair and beard fell full half-way to the ground, in waving curls, so exquisitely delicate, that Gluck could hardly tell where they ended; they seemed to melt into air.  The features of the face, however, were by no means finished with the same delicacy; they were rather coarse, slightly inclining to coppery in complexion, and indicative, in expression, of a very pertinacious and intractable disposition in their small proprietor.  When the dwarf had finished his self-examination, he turned his small, sharp eyes full on Gluck, and stared at him deliberately for a minute or two.  “No, it wouldn’t, Gluck, my boy,” said the little man.

This was certainly rather an abrupt and unconnected mode of commencing conversation.  It might indeed be supposed to refer to the course of Gluck’s thoughts, which had first produced the dwarf’s observations out of the pot; but whatever it referred to, Gluck had no inclination to dispute the dictum.

“Wouldn’t it, sir?” said Gluck, very mildly and submissively indeed.

“No,” said the dwarf, conclusively.  “No, it wouldn’t.”  And with that, the dwarf pulled his cap hard over his brows, and took two turns of three feet long, up and down the room, lifting his legs very high, and setting them down very hard.  This pause gave time for Gluck to collect his thoughts a little, and, seeing no great reason to view his diminutive visitor with dread, and feeling his curiosity overcome his amazement, he ventured on a question of peculiar delicacy.