My brother-in-law, the Dragoon, directly kindled his tinder-box, and put a heap of the burning matter on the Rat-catcher's pole; but the fellow stood it, as if it had been a mere picture of fire, and the two looked expectingly at one another; and the former smiled very foolishly, saying: "It was simply pleasant to him, like a good warming-plaster; for this was always the wintry region of his body." Here the Dragoon groped a little on the naked scull, and cried with amazement, that "it was as cold as a knee-pan." ------------------------ 32. Our Age (by some called the Paper Age, as if it were made from the rags of some better dressed one) is improving in so far as it now tears, its rags rather into Bandages than into Papers; although, or because, the Rag-hacker (the Devil as they call it) will not altogether be at rest. Meanwhile, if Learned Heads transform themselves into Books, Crowned Heads transform and coin themselves into Government-paper. In Norway, according to the _Universal Indicator_, the people have even paper-houses; and in many good German States, the Exchequer Collegium (to say nothing of the Justice Collegium) keeps its own paper-mills, to furnish wrappage enough for the meal of its wind-mills. I could wish, however, that our Collegiums would take pattern from that Glass Manufactory at Madrid, in which (according to Baumgärtner) there were indeed nineteen clerks stationed, but also eleven workmen. ------------------------ But now the fellow, to our horror, after some preparations, actually lifted off the quarter-skull and held it out to us, saying: "He had sawed it off a murderer, his own having accidentally been broken"; and withal explained, that the stabbing and arm-cutting he had talked of was to be understood as a jest, seeing he had merely done it in the character of Famulus at an Anatomical Theatre. However, the jester seemed to rise little in favor with any of us; and for my part, as he put his brain-lid and sham-skull on again, I thought to myself: "This dung-bed-bell has changed its place, indeed, but not the hemlock it was made to cover." Further, I could not but reckon it a suspicious circumstance, that he as well as all the company (the Blind Passenger too) were making for this very Flätz, to which I myself was bound. Much good I could not expect of this; and, in truth, turning home again would have been as pleasant to me as going on, had I not rather felt a pleasure in defying the future.