"What trouble they have taken with that bottle over
yonder!" said one, and very likely it is broken after all." But the
bottle was not broken, and, better still, it understood every word
that was said: this language it had heard at the furnaces and at
the wine merchant's; in the forest and on the ship,—it was the only
good old language it could understand. It had returned home, and
the language was as a welcome greeting. For very joy, it felt ready
to jump out of people's hands, and scarcely noticed that its cork
had been drawn, and its contents emptied out, till it found itself
carried to a cellar, to be left there and forgotten. "There's no
place like home, even if it's a cellar." It never occurred to him
to think that he might lie there for years, he felt so comfortable.
For
