Chapter 17 - Page 2

servants' hall, and gave him a bed in the
stables.

When he started forth in the morning, thousands were gathered to see.
The emperor said:

"Do not be rash, take a spear, and leave off your knapsack."

But the tramp said:

"It is not a knapsack," and moved straight on.

The dragon was waiting and ready. He was breathing forth vast volumes
of sulphurous smoke and lurid blasts of flame. The ragged knight
stole warily to a good position, then he unslung his cylindrical
knapsack--which was simply the common fire-extinguisher known to modern
times--and the first chance he got he turned on his hose and shot the
dragon square in the center of his cavernous mouth. Out went the fires
in an instant, and the dragon curled up and died.

This man had brought brains to his aid. He had reared dragons from the
egg, in his laboratory, he had watched over them like a mother, and
patiently studied them and experimented upon them while they grew. Thus
he had found out that fire was the life principle of a dragon; put out
the dragon's fires and it could make steam no longer, and must die.
He could not put out a fire with a spear, therefore he invented the
extinguisher. The dragon being dead, the emperor fell on the hero's neck
and said:

"Deliverer, name your request," at the same time beckoning out behind
with his heel for a detachment of his daughters to form and advance. But
the tramp gave them no observance. He simply said:

"My request is, that upon me be conferred the monopoly of the
manufacture and sale of spectacles in Germany."

The emperor sprang aside and exclaimed:

"This transcends all the impudence I ever heard! A modest demand, by my
halidome! Why didn't you ask for the imperial revenues at once, and be
done with it?"

But the monarch had given his word, and he kept it. To everybody's
surprise, the unselfish monopolist immediately reduced the price of
spectacles to such a degree that a great and crushing burden was removed
from the nation. The emperor, to commemorate this generous act, and to
testify his appreciation of it, issued a decree commanding everybody to
buy this benefactor's spectacles and wear them, whether they needed them
or not.

So originated the wide-spread custom of wearing spectacles in Germany;
and as a custom once established in these old lands is imperishable,
this one remains universal in the empire to this day. Such is the legend
of the monopolist's once stately and sumptuous castle, now called the
"Spectacular Ruin."

On the right bank, two or three miles below the Spectacular Ruin, we
passed by a noble pile of castellated buildings overlooking the water