Specimens of German Romance; Vol. II. Master FleaHoffmann, E. T. A. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus)
Science
Specimens of German Romance; Vol. II. Master Flea
Hoffmann, E. T. A. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus)
German fiction -- Translations into English
"The man, who flies up and down so admirably," exclaimed one of the
spectators, "is the clock-maker, Degen, of Vienna--he who invented the
flying machine, with which he is constantly contriving to tumble down
upon his nose."
"No," replied another; "that is not the clock-maker. I should rather
fancy that it was the Little Tailor of Sachsenhausen, if I did not know
that the poor thing was burnt."
I know not whether my readers are acquainted with the Little Tailor of
Sachsenhausen? Here it is.
_History of the Little Tailor of Sachsenhausen._
It happened that a pious little tailor, at Sachsenhausen, was coming
out of church one Sunday with his wife, in all his best attire. The air
was raw, the little tailor had taken nothing over night but a soft
boiled egg and a few pickled gerkins, and in the morning a cup of
coffee. Moreover he had been singing most vehemently in the church, and
hence he began to feel in a piteous plight, and to long for a dram. As
he had worked hard through the week, and had been particularly kind to
his better-half, making her a very pretty gown out of the pieces
cabbaged from his customers, she consented to his going into the
apothecary's and getting himself a dram, which he did accordingly. The
awkward apprentice, who was alone in the shop, made a mistake, and took
down a bottle which, instead of a dram, contained inflammable gas,
wherewith balloons are filled. Of this the apprentice poured out a full
glass, and the tailor, putting it at once to his mouth, swallowed off
the gas as an agreeable reviver. It made him, however, feel very
strangely,--as if he had got a pair of wings on his shoulders, or as if
some one were playing at foot-ball with him; for he felt himself
compelled to jump up and down in the shop, and with every moment the
impetus increased.
"Eh! Gemini! Gemini!" he cried,--"what a nimble dancer I have grown!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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