should not have retained such entirely different feelings
about them.

It was one of our chief sports to fire off so-called shooting-keys.
That the children of large cities know anything about shooting-keys is
hardly probable, hence I may be permitted to describe them here. They
were hollow keys with very thin walls, consequently of enormous bore,
so to speak, and were used to lock trunks, especially the trunks of
servant girls. It was our constant endeavor to gain possession of such
keys and at times our expeditions were nothing short of piracy. Woe be
unto the poor servant girl who forgot to take a key out of its lock!
She never saw it again. We took possession of it, and the simple
procedure of filing out a touchhole produced a finished firearm. As
these keys were always rusty, and occasionally split, it not
infrequently happened that they burst; but we always escaped injury.
The angel helped.

Much more dangerous was the art of making fireworks, which I was
always practicing. With the help of sulphur and saltpeter, which we
kept in a convenient place in the apothecary's shop, I had made of
myself a full-fledged pyrotechnician, in which process I was very
materially aided by my skill in the manipulation of cardboard and
paste. All sorts of shells were easily made, and so I produced
Catherine-wheels, revolving suns, and flower-pots. Often these
creations refused to perform the duty expected of them, and then we
piled them up and, by means of a sulphurated match, touched off the
whole heap of miscarried glory and waited to see what it would do.
This was all done with comparatively little danger. Fraught with all
the more danger for us was the thing which was considered the simplest
and lowest product of the art of pyrotechnics, and was so rated by us,
viz., the serpent. Very often the serpents I made would not burn
properly, because I had not used the right mixture, no doubt, and that
always vexed me greatly. When a Catherine-wheel refused to turn, that
could at least be tolerated, for a Catherine-wheel is a comparatively
difficult thing to make. A serpent, on the other hand, could not well
help burning, and when, for all that, one simply would not burn, that
was a humiliation that could not be suffered. So I would bend over the
shells as they stuck in the pile of sand and begin to blow, in order
to give new life to the dying tinder fire. When it went out entirely,
that was really the best thing for me. But if it wen