If you do ill will befall you.Farewell, for I am going away again and cannot tell when I may return.
No sooner had the old man disappeared than Hans sat down to a good meal, and after that went to bed and slept until the morning.At first he could not remember what had happened to him, but by-and-by he jumped up and went into all the rooms, which he examined carefully.
'How foolish to bid me to put sand on the floors,' he thought, 'when there is nobody here by myself! I shall do nothing of the sort.' And so he shut the doors quickly, and only cleaned and set in order his own room.And after the first few days he felt that that was unnecessary too, because no one came there to see if the rooms where clean or not.
At last he did no work at all, but just sat and wondered what was behind the locked door, till he determined to go and look for himself.
The key turned easily in the lock.Hans entered, half frightened at what he was doing, and the first thing he beheld was a heap of bones.
That was not very cheerful; and he was just going out again when his eye fell on a shelf of books.Here was a good way of passing the time, he thought, for he was fond of reading, and he took one of the books from the shelf.It was all about magic, and told you how you could change yourself into anything in the world you liked.Could anything be more exciting or more useful? So he put it in his pocket, and ran quickly away out of the mountain by a little door which had been left open.
When he got home his parents asked him what he had been doing and where he had got the fine clothes he wore.
'Oh, I earned them myself,' answered he.
'You never earned them in this short time,' said his father.'Be off with you; I won't keep you here.I will have no thieves in my house!'
'Well I only came to help you,' replied the boy sulkily.'Now I'll be off, as you wish; but to-morrow morning when you rise you will see a great dog at the door.Do not drive it away, but take it to the castle and sell it to the duke, and they will give you ten dollars for it;only you must bring the strap you lead it with, back to the house.'