Giddypated Firmian! Your seething foam of pleasure may soon drop down and disappear--as it did that Saturday when the cards were left. As yet, however, his little drop of must which he has squeezed out of the forenoon hours was foaming and sparkling briskly. The landlord moved at a gallop, casting (with his powder-sowing machine) seed into a fruitful soil. The bookbinder conveyed his goods (consisting partly of empty manuscript books, partly of still emptier song books, partly of "novelties," in almanacs) to the fair by land-carriage in a wheelbarrow, which he had to make two journeys with in going, but only one in returning in the evening, because then he had got rid of his almanacs to purchasers and to sellers (almanacs are the greatest of all novelties, or pieces of news--for there is nothing in all the long course of time so new as the new year). Old Sabel had set up her East India house, her fruit garner, and her cabinet of tin rings at the town gate; she wouldn't have let that warehouse of hers go to her own brother at a lower figure than half-a-sovereign. The cobbler put a stitch in no shoe on this St. Michael's Day except his wife's. Suck away, my hero, at your nice bit of raffinade sugar of life, and empty your forenoon sweetstuff spoon, not troubling your head about the devil and his grandmother, although the pair of them should be thinking (after the nature of them) about getting a bitter potion, even a poison cup, made ready and handing it to you. But his greatest enjoyment is still to come, to wit, the numberless beggar people. I will describe this enjoyment, and so distribute it. A fair is the high mass which the beggars of all ranks and classes attend; when it is still a day or two off, all the footsoles that have nothing to walk upon but compassionate hearts, are converging towards the spot like so many radii, but on the morning of the fair-day itself the whole annual congress of beggardom and the column of cripples are fairly on the march. Anyone who has seen _Fŭrth_, or been in Elwangen during P. Gassner's government, may cut these few leaves out of his copy; but no one else has any idea of it till I proceed and lead him in at the town-gate of Kuhschnappel.