Gnomes, the Salamanders, the Sylphides, the 
Sylphs, the Nixies, the Undines and their 
women-folk,—I mean the law which allows the 
Fairies in such a case as this, when all the gifts 
are gone, the power of giving yet one more 
additional and exceptional, provided always 
that she have sufficient imagination to create it 
on the spur of the moment. 
The good Fairy then replied, with a self-
possession worthy of her high rank, “I give 
your son—I give him—the gift of pleasing.” 
“But please how?—To please?—Why to 
please?” the little shop-keeper obstinately 
asked, for he was doubtless one of that very 
common class of reasoners who are incapable 
of rising to the height of the logic of the ab-
surd. 
“Because, because!” replied the incensed 
Fairy, turning her back upon him, and rejoining 
her companions, she said to them, “What do 
you think of this empty-headed little French-
woman who wishes to understand everything; 
and who, having obtained for his son the best 
of all gifts, still dares to ask questions and to 
discuss the inscrutable?”