“In the Leith Walk window all the year round, there stood displayed a theatre in working order, with a _Forest Set_, a _Combat_, and a few _Robbers Carousing_ in the slides; and below and about, dearer tenfold to me! the plays themselves, those budgets of romance, lay tumbled one upon the other. Long and often have I lingered there with empty pockets. One figure, we shall say, was visible in the first plate of characters, bearded, pistol in hand, or drawing to his ear the clothyard arrow. I would spell the name: was it Macaire or Long Tom Coffin, or Grindoff, 2d dress? Oh, how I would long to see the rest! How--if the name by chance were hidden--I would wonder in what play he figured and what immortal legend justified his attitude and strange apparel! And then to go within to announce yourself as an intending purchaser, and, closely watched, be suffered to undo those bundles and to breathlessly devour those pages of gesticulating villains, epileptic combats, bosky forests, palaces and warships, frowning fortresses and prison vaults--it was a giddy joy.” “And when at length the deed was done, the play selected and the impatient shopman had brushed the rest into the gray portfolio, and the boy was forth again, a little late for dinner, the lamps springing into light in the blue winter’s even, and _The Miller_, or _The Rover_, or some kindred drama clutched against his side, on what gay feet he ran, and how he laughed aloud in exultation!” And Stevenson confesses: “I have, at different times, possessed _Aladdin_, _The Red Rover_, _The Blind Boy_, _The Old Oak Chest_, _The Wood Daemon_, _Jack Shepard_, _The Miller and His Men_, _Der Freischuetz_, _The Smuggler_, _The Forest of Bondy_, _Robin Hood_, _The Waterman_, _Richard I._, _My Poll and my Partner Joe_, _The Inchcape Bell_ (imperfect), and _Three-fingered Jack the Terror of Jamaica_; and I have assisted others in the illumination of the _Maid of the Inn_ and _The Battle of Waterloo_. In this roll-call of stirring names you read the evidences of a happy childhood.”[8] In Germany, also, toy theaters abound, better equipped possibly, and more carefully constructed, but lacking somewhat the quaint and fiery delightfulness of the English juvenile drama. There could be no more spontaneous testimonial of the love of children for the puppets than the throngs who crowded into Papa Schmidt’s Kasperle theatre to witness his familiar, jolly little shows of fairy-tale and folklore. In striving to meet the tastes and needs of children, Schmidt earned the reward of becoming the best beloved man in the city. It is interesting to note that when, once, he became discouraged and wished to retire, the city magistrates, urged by the _superintendent of the schools_, unanimously voted to build him a permanent little theatre.