ove
all else, the masterly art of the delivery.

The voices changed so rapidly and distinctly, the keynote to each
_role_ was so happily struck, and in the long speeches of the devil the
speaker developed so brilliant a power that there was probably not one
person among the audience who could repress a feeling of creeping
horror, such as one has when ghost stories are told in the dark.

When the rows had broken up again, and everybody was standing about
talking and laughing noisily, Felix took occasion to express to Schnetz
his amazement that a person of such great rhetorical talent should have
turned his back forever upon his art, and have settled down at a
clerk's desk.

"He will have all or nothing!" remarked the lieutenant. "Since he lost
one of his eyes, and deluded himself into the belief that with a glass
eye he would not be fit for the stage, he is far too proud to step down
from the high horse of the tragedian to the donkey of the public
reader. Every one knows whether he is acting to his own disadvantage
when he plays the malcontent. It is true, though, some one really ought
to prevail upon him to become the manager of a puppet-theatre. And
then, besides, it would offer a good employment for Rosenbusch, who
makes his puppets for him, and lends him a helping hand at the
exhibition. Although, to be sure, anything of that sort only affords
pleasure to a person of his stamp so long as it is an art which earns
him no bread. He has been puttering away over this farce for three
weeks at least, and letting everything else slide in consequence of it.
If it were exhibited for an entrance fee, he would soon be tired of
it."

Elfinger now entered again, and was obliged to submit to the applause
showered upon him in his proper person, and to acknowledge the toasts
drunk in his honor. He modestly refused, however, to accept the
applause, since the thanks of the audience belonged more properly to
the author, who was not himself, but a poet known to them all, who
cherished a wish to be admitted to Paradise. It was merely with this
end in view that he had written the text for the puppets, in the hope
of introducing himself in this way to the society, and of winning their
good opinion.

His admission was immediately agreed upon by acclamation, without the
usual formalities. Kohle begged the loan of the manuscript, as he
wished to illustrate it in a series of sketches. Rossel began, after
his usual fashion, to make critic