The flute was heard at the distance of a mile, and strange events took place. A rich banker’s family, who were driving in a coach and four, were blown out of it, and could not even find room behind it with their footmen. Two rich farmers who had in our days shot up higher than their own corn-fields, were flung into the ditch; it was a dangerous flute. Fortunately it burst at the first sound, and that was a good thing, for then it was put back into its owner’s pocket—“its right place.”
The next day, nobody spoke a word about what had taken place; thus originated the phrase, “to pocket the flute.” Everything was again in its usual order, except that the two old pictures of the peddlar and the goose-girl were hanging in the banqueting-hall. There they were on the wall as if blown up there; and as a real expert said that they were painted by a master’s hand, they remained there and were restored. “Everything in the right place,” and to this it will come. Eternity is long, much longer indeed than this story.