Scrub the Muzzle

In a large German city there was once a princely wedding which was celebrated in splendid style; there were parades and festivities of every description and immense numbers of travelling entertainers and tumblers and beggars. Among the last-named was a beggar who asked for alms as one pursuing a regular profession; nevertheless, on this day of the festival he had no particular luck, for everyone was preoccupied; people ran, people rushed, people pushed and were pushed, pressed and were pressed, looked and gawped, and had no time to pull out their purse; and this movement was not at all recommended, for if a forward hand were to snatch the purse away, that would be the end of it. It rankled exceedingly with the beggar that on this very day when he had expected a large yield of alms to hail down into his hat, he had received nothing at all, and he indignantly grumbled to himself: “Has the whole city then become like Meagre Manor? Hell’s Bells, the Devil must be in it! Oh, I’d rather ask the Devil for alms than you pinchpennies and starvelings! How many prayers have I said today alone, how many litanies spluttered out, and I’ve not even had the opportunity to say: ‘I kiss Your Grace’s hand, God bless you!’”

While the beggar grumbled in this wise, a small man with a limp and dressed in a short coat of green velvet walked past him. He was wearing a black Spanish hat with a red feather on top, and he half looked round towards the beggar, thereby opening to view a keenly flashing eye and a very imposing, sharply hooked Roman nose. The beggar instantly forgot his resolution not to address another soul that day and strode after Little Greencoat, pressed up close to him, held his slouch-hat out before him, and began his begging sermon in the form of an ejaculatory prayer. Greencoat made a furious face and shouted at the beggar in a hoarse voice: “Shut your mouth this instant, you rogue! You’ll gain nothing from me using such expressions. You don’t know whom you are asking for alms, even though this is what you promised to do a short while ago!”

With these words Greencoat walked into a street corner, where there was room to breathe, for the throng of people surged past down the street unceasingly, and the beggar followed him, because seeing the Green Man reach into his pocket, he speculated it might be to take out a little something for him. And the man did indeed do this, taking out a small iron rasp with a short wooden handle, and he said: “This little tool can and will put a permanent end to your want, if you care to follow my advice. You need only stroke it once over your lips and say, ‘Scrub the muzzle,’ and a gold coin will fall from your mouth. However, nothing comes for free in this world except death, according to the proverb – a proverb, by the way, that is a lie, for death costs life – so you will find it only fair that I also crave something from you.”

“Whatever Your Grace may command! At your service!” cried the beggar, trembling with joy, and he looked steadfastly at the new iron rasp.

“First of all, you must not say any more prayers, must henceforth on no account either pray or beg, must not enter a church, must not wed, and after seven years your soul must be mine. If anyone directs insults at you, if a judge passes an unfavourable sentence on you, if someone says something to you that displeases you, just pull this rasp out from your pocket and say, without raising it to your lips, ‘Scrub the muzzle,’ and it will give the mouth of your ill-wisher and such a working over as a local magistrate who is always in the right gives to a poor farmer, and they will then assuredly keep said mouth shut.”

Although the beggar now realised who this particular Greencoat was, and the knowledge gave him gooseflesh all over, yet the offer did not after all seem so bad to him, for he valued money above all else and had never especially concerned himself about his soul. Avoiding prayer and churchgoing was also no hardship to him, for he had never meant anything by the prayers he mechanically recited while begging, and his place in church had always been outside, before the church doors. He therefore accepted, and Greencoat said he would come to him and bring the note of hand along for his signature the next morning – one never knows when one will die – for he must have something red on white, and if the beggar did not scrupulously stick to the pact, then his soul would instantly be forfeited to the Green Man. “The trick with ‘Scrub the muzzle’ to obtain money,” the Green Man added, “can be practised only once a day, and that only in the morning, before you break your fast.”

Greencoat limped away and was soon lost in the teeming crowd, while the beggar kept his hand constantly on his left trouser-pocket, in which the former had put the rasp, so that the likes of a pickpocket would not swipe it; contrary to habit, he did not go to an inn that evening, and he could not get a wink of sleep all night for expectation. He had wrapped the rasp in a handkerchief and bound it round his neck, so as not to lose it.

He was up at the crack of dawn, when he fetched a bowl, took out the rasp, passed it over his wide mouth and said, “Scrub the muzzle!” – Clang! a brand spanking new Kremnitz ducat fell clinking into the bowl – however, some skin fell from his lip at the same time. But the rascal paid no heed to the pain; he worked at his mouth like a locksmith with his file, “Scrub the muzzle, scrub the muzzle, scrub the muzzle!” The rasp went at a brisk pace, and there really did fall a golden shower, as in the fable of the heathen gods when Zeus paid his respects to Danaë – only, scholars are not, unfortunately, able to say with any certainty if it rained Kremnitz ducats at that time also, or if it was perhaps a rainbow cup.[33]

Now the rasp-master’s mouth was bleeding quite badly when Greencoat arrived with a roll of parchment and a quill that was freshly-cut – but cut the wrong way – which he dipped into his man’s bleeding lips as into a red inkpot, and the other had to sign his name on the parchment – whereupon the Green Man suddenly disappeared, taking the pact with him, but leaving behind a tin of lip-pomade, which smelt of sulphur rather than attar of roses, to heal the small wounds; and he added the warning not to make too very frequent use of the rasp, or the rasper would always have a bad mouth, and this alone was enough to make someone suspicious in the eyes of the police and put him in their bad books.

On the following day, Kremnitz Goldmouth had a horrible scab on his lips, but he did not, in his opinion, have nearly enough ducats, so he began to scrub his muzzle anew, till coins fairly rattled into the bowl; he suffered abominable pains, admittedly, and his lips swelled up like two brown sausages which had partly burst in the frying, but he did gain a great deal of gold. He could not go out without a bandage on his mouth, but he went to a tavern that evening all the same and released some of his little golden birds, carousing and living it up with his former brothers-in-alms. Yet they ridiculed him for his boar’s snout, saying he must have kissed the Devil’s grandmother! – and because this vexed him, he took out the rasp and said, softly and secretly, “Scrub the muzzle,” and in a trice the rasp was dancing invisibly all over the lips of the compotator who had cracked the joke, but without any gold falling down, making him yell out in pain; after which the rasper withdrew, swearing to himself to henceforth avoid such low company. He now had the rasp work busily around his mouth, as much as he could possibly bear, and began the construction of a new house, which he prosecuted ardently. He had the words, “At the Scrubbed Muzzle” written above the door, and he adopted the noble name Chrysostomus, which is Goldmouth in English.

Lord Chrysostomus at the Scrubbed Muzzle became ever richer and richer – it was just a shame that he always went around with his mouth bandaged, which caused the tale to spread among the people that his mouth was not a mouth but a small pig’s snout, yet made of gold, which he was continually abrading, and that was the source of his wealth. Now, because he did not give anything to the poor, there was born the expression, which afterwards spread throughout the whole German Empire, by which every miserly rich man was called a skinflint.

Lord Chrysostomus at the Scrubbed Muzzle lived a life of luxury and ease; if anyone did or spoke anything against him, he had the rasp give them a thorough working over, with the result that they all held their tongue then and there; and even the police, the first time they tried to fall upon him because of his loose tongue, were so well and truly rasped that they never again ventured to lay hands on Lord Chrysostomus at the Scrubbed Muzzle.

So the seven years went by and Greencoat returned, intending to receive the lapsed soul. The doorkeeper of His Excellency the Count Chrysostomus of and at the Scrubbed Muzzle did not want to admit the Green Man to his master because he held him to be some itinerant hunter, but Little Greencoat tripped the big doorkeeper up, who fell down with a thud like a sack of nuts.

His Lordship the Count reposed[34] on the sofa, perusing the newspaper, with several bottles of Hungarian wine lined up beside him, and smoking Turkish tobacco, when the Greencoat stepped into the magnificently decorated mirrored room.

“What is it? What’s all this about?” the Count enquired, in an evil temper at someone daring to enter unannounced. “Apply to the valet!”

“I have to talk with you, worthy sir!” replied the Greencoat. “Your time is up! Here is the pact. Up, quick march! Instead of shaving off, it’s time to shove off!”

His Lordship the Count of and at the Scrubbed Muzzle whisked a square lorgnette, which was appended to a ribbon, up to his right eye, and squinted through it at Greencoat, then His Excellency executed a yawn and said, “What? Time? Pact? Quick march? Scrub the muzzle – Idiocy!”

No sooner had His Lordship the Count articulated the words, “Scrub the muzzle” than the rasp flew at Greencoat’s mouth and rasped it until he well-nigh lost his senses. The stupid Devil – Greencoat was none other – had forgotten to give this muzzle-scrubber a property that could not be exercised on everyone – the Count drummed a Highland reel in two-four time on the table with the fingers of his left hand, humming along:

“Scrub the muzzle, scrub the muzzle, scrub the muzzle! Ha-ha-ha!

Scrub the muzzle, scrub the muzzle, scrub the muzzle! Tra-la-la!”

and the Devil became sick and sore from this dance; he screamed so loud that the whole house At the Scrubbed Muzzle shuddered, and at last he dropped to his knees and implored His Illustrious Grace the Count for mercy and an end of it.

His Lordship the Count exhaled a cloud of Turkish tobacco-smoke into the Devil’s face and outstretched his hand, without altering his recumbent posture, pronouncing only these two words: “My pact!” whereupon the Devil handed it over. The Count dispelled his doubts that it was the right one and not, perhaps, a supposititious document, then His Excellency very leisurely tore the parchment with its red signature in sunder and enounced, “Let that be the end of it! Be so good as to wipe your mouth and find the exit. As for the rasp, you will leave it to me as a keepsake, our exemplary police will feel –” – “Shut your mouth, you stupid fool!” the Devil interrupted, “you needed to say that earlier. The pact is torn up, and the rasp is mine again.

“With such an invaluable tool as this, I shall receive souls entirely different from yours, you rogue! O that I could get my hands on you! But just you wait, and woe betide you if you do come to me in the end – then, in that place of wailing and gnashing of teeth,[35] I too shall say, ‘Scrub the muzzle.’”