"And yet he took the candlesticks."

"Yes, he did. Most graciously, and he thanked me kindly for them. He was too much a gentleman to throw them back in my face. He gave me, in return, a length of cloth of gold. Someone, I suppose, perhaps some noble visitor, had given it to him, for the hermit would have had no money to buy so princely a gift. I have often thought, however, that he should have kept it and given me a much more lowly gift. I've wondered all these years what I possibly could do with a length of cloth of gold. I keep it in a chest and I take it out now and then and have a look at it, but that is all I ever do with it. I suppose I could trade it off for something more utilitarian, but I hesitate to do that, for it was the hermit's gift and for that reason seems to me to have a certain sentimental value. One does not sell gifts, particularly a gift from so good a man."

"I think," said Gib, "that you must imagine much of this—the hermit's embarrassment, I mean. I, for example, have no such feeling toward you. Although, in all fairness, I must admit that I am not a human."

"Much closer than I am," said the gnome, "and therein may lie a difference."

He rose. "I'll get your ax," he said, "and there is something else that I want to show you." He patted the bundle Gib had placed on the counter. "I'll give you credit for this. Without it you have credit left, even with the ax."

"There's something I've always wanted to ask you," said Gib, "and never had the courage until now. All the People of the Marshes, all the People of the Hills, even many of the humans who know not how to write, bring you goods and you give them credit. It must be, then, that you know how to write."