"This is certainly old Mr. Toil," said Daffy-down-dilly, in a trembling voice. "Let us run away, for fear he will make us enlist in his company!"
"You are mistaken again, my little friend," replied the stranger, very composedly. "This is not Mr. Toil, the schoolmaster, but a brother of his, who has served in the army all his life. People say he's a very severe fellow, but you and I need not be afraid of him."
"Well, well," said Daffy-down-dilly, "but, if you please, sir, I don't want to see the soldiers any more."
So the child and the stranger resumed their journey; and, by and by, they came to a house by the roadside, where some people were making merry. Young men and rosy-cheeked girls, with smiles on their faces, were dancing to the sound of a fiddle.
"Let us stop here," cried Daffy-down-dilly to his companion; "for Mr. Toil will never dare to show his face where there is a fiddler, and where people are dancing and making merry. We shall be quite safe here."
But these last words died away upon Daffy-down-dilly's tongue, for, happening to cast his eyes on the fiddler, whom should he behold again, but the likeness of Mr. Toil, holding a fiddle bow instead of a birch rod.
"Oh, dear!" whispered he, turning pale, "it seems as if there was nobody but Mr. Toil in the world. Who could have thought of his playing on a fiddle!"
"This is not your old schoolmaster," said the stranger, "but another brother of his, who was bred in France, where he learned the profession of a fiddler. He is ashamed of his family, and generally calls himself Mr. Pleasure; but his real name is Toil, and those who have known him best, think him still more disagreeable than his brother."
"Pray let us go a little farther," said Daffy-down-dilly. "I don't like the looks of this fiddler."
Thus the stranger and little Daffy-down-dilly went wandering along the highway, and in shady lanes, and through pleasant villages; and, whithersoever they went, behold! there was the image of old Mr. Toil.
He stood like a scarecrow in the cornfields. If they entered a house, he sat in the parlor; if they peeped into the kitchen, he was there. He made himself at home in every cottage, and, under one disguise or another, stole into the most splendid mansions.