Last autumn, on a Saturday--and it was Michaelmas Day--we were all
sitting round the oaken table, between one and two o'clock in the
afternoon; old Doctor Melchior, Eisenloffel the blacksmith, and his old
wife, old Berbel Rasimus, Johannes the capuchin monk, Borves Fritz the
clarionet-player at the Pied de Boeuf, and half a hundred more, laughing,
singing, drinking, playing at _youker_, draining jugs and glasses, eating
puddings and _andouilles_.
Mother Gredel was coming and going; the pretty maid-servants, Heinrichen
and Lotte, were flying up and down the kitchen stairs like squirrels, and
outside, under the broad archway, was the booming, and banging, and
jingling of the big drum and the cymbals, while the exciting proclamation
was being made: "Ho! ho! hi! Great battle to come off! The Asturian bear,
Beppo, and Baptist, the Savoyard bear, against all dogs that may come.
Boom! boom! Walk in, ladies! Walk in, gentlemen! Here's the buffalo from
Calabria, and the onagra of the desert! Walk in, walk in! Don't be
frightened! All walk in!"
And they did come in, in crowds.
Sebaldus, barring the passage with his burly form, as Horatius guarded
the bridge in the brave days of old, shouted to all--
"Your five kreutzers, friends and neighbours! Five kreutzers for
admittance! Pay, or I'll throttle you!"
It was an awful confusion; people climbed over each other's backs to get
in faster, until Bridget Kera lost a stocking and Anna Seiler half her
petticoat.
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