was this that they chiefly sold, so that the German clerk in Denmark was called a "pepper dealer." Before they left home they had to promise that they would not marry while they were away; many of them, too, were very old, and they had to look after themselves, find for themselves, and light their own fires, if they had any; so it was that some of them grew such queer old fellows, with their own peculiar thoughts and ways; and it is because of them that men who grow old without having married are called "Pebersvend," or "Pepper-dealers." All this can be seen and understood in this story.
People make fun of the pepper-dealers, bidding them go put their nightcaps on, pull them down over their eyes, and go to bed—
"Oh fie! you pepper-seller!
Put up your green umbrella!
Go to bed with your nightcap on,
Put out your light, and you'll have none!"
Yes, that is what they sing about them! They laugh at the pepper-dealer and his nightcap, just because they know nothing about either one or the other. Alas! it is a nightcap no one need wish for! And why so? Well, listen, and you shall hear.
In the "Street of Small Houses," in the old times, there was no pavement; people stumbled out of one hole into another, as though it were a dirty cart-track, and it was very narrow. The booths stood close beside each other, and with so little distance between the two rows, that in the summer time they stretched a sail from one side of the street to the other, and then the air was more full than ever of the spicy smells of pepper and saffron and ginger.
