t waltzing up and down
Spandau Street, with my arms clasped about a broom-handle--not a lady,
but a besom, which scratched my face. And all the time there were
invisible hands beating my back black and blue. More than that; all
round me, wherever I turned, the place was swarming with Tussmanns
waltzing with their arms round besoms. At last I fell down exhausted,
and lost my consciousness. When the light shone into my eyes in the
morning--oh, Bosswinkel, share my terror!--I found myself sitting up on
the horse of the Elector's statue, in front of him, with my head on his
cold, iron breast. Luckily the sentry must have been asleep, for I
managed to get down without being seen, at the risk of my life, and got
away. I ran to Spandau Street; but I got so terribly frightened again
that I was obliged to come on here to you."

"Now, now, old fellow!" Bosswinkel said, "do you think I'm going to
believe all this rubbish? Did ever anybody hear of magical phenomena of
this sort happening in our enlightened city of Berlin?"

"Now," said Tussmann, "don't you see what a quagmire of ignorance and
error the fact that you never _read_ anything plunges you into? If you
had read Hafftitz's Chronicon, you would have seen that much more
extraordinary things of the kind have happened here. Commissionsrath, I
go so far as to assert, and to feel quite convinced, that this
Goldsmith is the very Devil, in _propria persona_."

"Pooh, pooh!" said Bosswinkel, "I wish you wouldn't talk such nonsense.
Think a little. Of course, what happened was that you got screwed, and
then went and climbed up on to the Elector's statue."

The tears came to Tussmann's eyes as he strove to disabuse Bosswinkel's
mind of this idea; but Bosswinkel grew graver and graver, and at last
said:

"The more I think of it, the more I feel convinced that those people
you met with were old Manasseh, the Jew, and Leonhard, the goldsmith, a
very clever hand at juggling tricks, who comes every now and then to
Berlin. I haven't read as many books as you have, I know; but, for all
that, I know well enough that they are good honest fellows, and have no
more to do with black art than you or I have. I'm astonished that you,
with your knowledge of law, shouldn't be aware that superstition is
illegal, and forbidden under severe penalties; no practitioner of the
black art could get a licence from the Government to carry it on, under
any circumstances. Look here, Tussmann. I hope there i