"I'm sorry," Franz answered in a low voice.
"Once I hoped you would be a farmer," the elder Halle said, "so I set
you to plowing. I found the plow abandoned and the oxen standing in
their yokes while you chased butterflies. Then I thought you would be a
herdsman, but I found the cattle lowing to be milked while you roamed
the forest with your dog. I apprenticed you to a cobbler, and you
attached the heels where the soles should have been. I asked a lacemaker
to teach you his trade, and in one day you ruined enough material to do
away with a week's profit. I decided you must surely be a scholar, and
now this!"