ting the Tenth, and
being a more or less ingenious lad, I usually prepared my own
fire-works and many things happened which might not otherwise have
come to pass if I had been properly looked after as you are. The first
thing that happened to me on the Tenth of August that would have a
great deal better not have happened, was when I was--er--how old are
you Imps?"

"Sixteen," said they. "Going on eighteen."

"Nonsense," said the Baron. "Why you're not more than eight."

"Nope--we're sixteen," said Diavolo. "I'm eight and Angelica's eight
and twice eight is sixteen."

"Oh," said the Baron. "I see. Well, that was exactly the age I was at
the time. Just eight to a day."

"Sixteen we said," said the Twins.

"Yes," nodded the Baron. "Just eight, but going on towards sixteen. My
father had given me ten thalers to spend on noises, but unlike most
boys I did not care so much for noises as I did for novelties. It
didn't give me any particular pleasure to hear a giant cracker go off
with a bang. What I wanted to do most of all was to get up some kind
of an exhibition that would please the people and that could be seen
in the day-time instead of at night when everybody is tired and
sleepy. So instead of spending my money on fire-crackers and torpedoes
and rockets, I spent nine thalers of it on powder and one thaler on
putty blowers. My particular object was to make one grand effort and
provide passers-by with a free exhibition of what I was going to call
'Munchausen's Grand Geyser Cascade.' To do this properly I had set my
eye upon a fish pond not far from the town hall. It was a very deep
pond and about a mile in circumference, I should say. Putty blowers
were then selling at five for a pfennig and powder was cheap as sand
owing to the fact that the powder makers, expecting a war, had made a
hundred times as much as was needed, and as the war didn't come off,
they were willing to take almost anything they could get for it. The
consequence was that the powder I got was sufficient in quantity to
fill a rubber bag as large as five sofa cushions. This I sank in the
middle of the pond, without telling anybody what I intended to do, and
through the putty blowers, sealed tightly together end to end, I
conducted a fuse, which I made myself, from the powder bag to the
shore. My idea was that I could touch the thing off, you know, and
that about sixty square feet of the pond would fly up into the air and
then fall gracefully back a