In the warm lands every window has a balcony, and the people came out on all the balconies in the street--for one must have air, even if one be accustomed to be mahogany!* It was lively both up and down the street. Tailors, and shoemakers, and all the folks, moved out into the street--chairs and tables were brought forth--and candles burnt--yes, above a thousand lights were burning--and the one talked and the other sung; and people walked and church-bells rang, and asses went along with a dingle-dingle-dong! for they too had bells on. The street boys were screaming and hooting, and shouting and shooting, with devils and detonating balls:--and there came corpse bearers and hood wearers,--for there were funerals with psalm and hymn,--and then the din of carriages driving and company arriving:--yes, it was, in truth, lively enough down in the street. Only in that single house, which stood opposite that in which the learned foreigner lived, it was quite still; and yet some one lived there, for there stood flowers in the balcony--they grew so well in the sun's heat--and that they could not do unless they were watered--and some one must water them--there must be somebody there. The door opposite was also opened late in the evening, but it was dark within, at least in the front room; further in there was heard the sound of music. The learned foreigner thought it quite marvellous, but now--it might be that he only imagined it--for he found everything marvellous out there, in the warm lands, if there had only been no sun. The stranger's landlord said that he didn't know who had taken the house opposite, one saw no person about, and as to the music, it appeared to him to be extremely tiresome. "It is as if some one sat there, and practised a piece that he could not master--always the same piece. 'I shall master it!' says he; but yet he cannot master it, however long he plays." ------ * The word _mahogany_ can be understood, in Danish, as having two meanings. In general, it means the reddish-brown wood itself; but in jest, it signifies "excessively fine," which arose from an anecdote of Nyboder, in Copenhagen, (the seamen's quarter.) A sailor's wife, who was always proud and fine, in her way, came to her neighbor, and complained that she had got a splinter in her finger. "What of?" asked the neighbor's wife. "It is a mahogany splinter;" said the other. "Mahogany! it cannot be less with you!" exclaimed the woman;--and thence the proverb, "It is so mahogany!"--(that is, so excessively fine)--is derived. ------