t delightful Italian _aria_, and did it
much better than our Court singer Bernard Pasquino Grosso from Mantua
did seventy years afterwards (but not so charmingly as our _prime
donne_ sing nowadays). Then there was a foot tournay, to which the
Elector and the Count went in a ship, which was all dressed over with
black and yellow cloth, and had a sail of gold taffeta; and behind His
Highness sate the little boy who had been Cupid the day before, in a
long coat of many colours, a peaked black and yellow hat, and a
long grey beard. The singers and musicians were dressed in the same
way; and nil round about the ship a number of gentlemen danced and
jumped--gentlemen of good family, mind you!--with heads and tails of
salmon, herrings, and fishes of other sorts: most delightful to behold.
In the evening, about ten, there was a grand display of fireworks, with
thousands of detonations; and the master-gunners played all sorts of
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