pranks--had combats; and there were explosions of fiery stars; and fiery men and horses, strange birds and other creatures, went up into the air with a terrible rushing and banging. They went on for more than two hours, those fireworks." Whilst the goldsmith was narrating all this, the Clerk of the Privy Chancery gave every sign of the liveliest interest and the utmost enjoyment, crying, in a sympathizing and interested manner, "Ey!--oh!--ah!"--smiling, rubbing his hands, moving backwards and forwards on his chair, and gulping down glass after glass of the wine the while. "Dearest Professor," he cried at last, in falsetto (always a mark in him of intense enjoyment)--"My dearest, most respected Herr Professor! what delightful things you have been having the kindness to tell me about!--really _quite_ as though you had been there and seen them yourself." "Well!" the goldsmith said, "and wasn't I there?" Tussmann, who didn't in the least understand this extraordinary query, was going to try to get some further light thrown upon it, when the old Jew came in with a growl, to the following effect: "Don't forget those delightful entertainments when the pyres burned in the market-place--the Berlin folks were much delighted with them, you know; and the streets ran red with the blood of the wretched victims, slain in the most terrific manner, after confessing whatever was imputed to them by the wildest infatuation and the most idiotic superstition. Don't, I merely say, forget to tell your friend about them!" "Yes, yes," Tussmann said; "of course you mean those terrible witchcraft trials which took place in those old days. Ah! they were atrocious businesses; fortunately the enlightenment of the present age has altered all those things." The goldsmith cast strange looks at the old Jew and at Tussmann; and presently asked the latter, with a mysterious smile, if he had ever heard about the Jew-coiner, Lippold, and what had happened to him in the year 1512.