at a little inn in the town of Würzburg, Germany. He was tall, dark, and
rather sombre-looking. His strange ways soon aroused the curiosity of
the towns-people to the highest pitch. He would take long rambles, often
being absent from early morning till the time of the evening meal.
Certain worthies reported having seen him, wrapt in contemplation,
walking by the Rhine, occasionally waving his arms, and paying no
attention to the passers-by. One person had seen his light burning far
into the morning. But the landlady at first said she had no cause for
complaint; the stranger was pleased with everything set before him, and
seemed to be a perfect gentleman.
One morning one of the maids of the inn told the landlady that,
listening at the stranger's key-hole the night before, she had heard him
in earnest conversation with some person or thing, and yet no one had
been seen to enter the room. The girl was severely reprimanded for her
eavesdropping, but nevertheless the landlady took her post at the door
the following evening, and had her story to tell. She had fully made up
her mind that the stranger was in league with the evil one. She gave the
information to the justices of the town, and sundry officers were
speedily assembled about the stranger's door. Near at hand, too, was a
goodly gathering of the town gossips. The oppressive silence was
suddenly broken by the distinct tones of a dialogue going on in the
stranger's room. The officers crowded around the door and heard the
following conversation:
"Thou misformed offspring of our uncreated power--thou whom I have so
long sought--thou shalt escape me no longer. Answer me! Come, my black
barbet, change thy costume. How thy black hair rises on end, thy body
swells, and thy red eyes sparkle!... If thou indeed hast submitted
thyself to me, show thyself, demon, and speak to thy master."
At this moment _a distinct smell of burning brimstone_ caused the stout
burghers to draw their noses away from the door and stifle their
coughing as best they could.
A sharp shrill voice was now heard to answer,
"Master, what dost thou desire of thy servant?"
The door was broken down, and the stranger dragged before the
magistrate, charged with being in league with the devil. The stranger
quietly said:
"I had begun a tragedy, but as my friends disturbed me continually at
Weimar, where I live, I came to write here. The hero of my tragedy is a
man who invokes the devil, and to whom the devil appears. I confess that
I have an unfortunate habit of reading aloud what I compose, as fast as
I write it. As to my invoking, perhaps personally, the devil, I am too
good a Christian to do that, and you, Mr. Burgomaster, too enlightened
to believe it."
The wizard was Goethe, and the tragedy, _Faust_.
VINCENT V. M. BEEDE.
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A PRIMER OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL
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HARPER & BROTHERS, Publishers, New York
[Illustration]
HOW THE GILT BALL BECAME A WEATHER-VANE.
A ball of gilt was mounted high upon a lofty tower,
Above a great and faithful clock that told the time each hour.
"What service do you render man, though you are placed so high?"
Inquired the clock. The gilty ball, ashamed, made no reply.
One day while roaming through the earth, Adversity espied
The gleaming sphere upon the tower, aloft at eventide.
And straightway shot an arrow with a quick, unerring aim,
Into the hollow useless ball while yet it was aflame.
Again inquired the faithful clock, "Though you are reared so high,
What service do you render man, ablaze up in the sky?"
"I tell the point from which the wind in passing by doth blow,
So all that gaze upon my face that fact shall quickly know.
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Am I, but poised 'twixt earth and sky I am a weather-vane."
* * * * *
RUN NO RISK.
SCORCHER (_to novice_). "The more wheels the better. Try a cycle first,
then buy a cycle, and try that. Tricycle, bicycle--see? Start right, and
you'll be able soon to get along without any wheel at all."
* * * * *
Rob and Arthur were looking at a picture in a Sunday-school paper, which
showed two South-Sea Islanders rubbing noses, after the cordial manner
of these natives when meeting a friend.
"What are they doing?" asked Rob.
Arthur, who had heard something about the custom, quickly replied, "Oh,
just scraping acquaintance."
* * * * *
NATURAL SYMPATHY.
Freddy was looking through a big picture-book, when he came to a picture
of Daniel in the lions' den, and he forthwith began to cry.
"Don't cry, Freddy," said his mother; "those lions aren't going to hurt
Daniel."
"I'm not crying about that," said Freddy. "There's a little lion there,
and Daniel's so small, I'm afraid the little lion won't get any."
* * * * *
SOME BITS OF NATURAL HISTORY.
"It stands to reason," writes Toby Trip in his composition, "that most
of our rats come from Gnaw-away, and that some of our choicest poultry
are cotch in China, while there are no black folks in the Isle of Wight.
Yet there are women in the Isle of Man, wise people in the Scilly Isles,
and the best-natured men in the world are natives of Ire-land."
* * * * *
"What were the Dark Ages?" asked the governess at the morning lessons.
"That must have been before spectacles were invented," guessed May.
"Oh no!" interrupted Cedric; "I know why they were called the Dark Ages.
Because there were more knights then."
* * * * *
"Well, Teddy, have you been a good boy to-day?" asked his mother upon
her return home late in the afternoon.
"No, ma'am," replied the truthful Ted.
"I hope you have not been a bad boy?"
"No, ma'am; not a very bad boy and not a very good boy--just
comfortable!"
* * * * *
"What time is it, my lad?" asked an American traveller of a small Irish
boy, who was driving a couple of cows home from the fields.
"About twelve o'clock, sir," replied the boy.
"I thought it was more."
"It's never any more here," returned the lad, in surprise. "It just
begins at one again."
* * * * *
A little boy and his sister were allowed, this summer, to collect the
eggs from the hen-coops, but they were told they must never take away
the nest-egg. The little girl, however, did so one morning by mistake,
and her brother told her she must take it right back, "because that was
what the old hen measured by."
* * * * *
When Freddy got back from the mountains last week he was much pleased at
the sight of clean stiff curtains hanging in all the rooms.
"Oh, mamma," he remarked, "the windows have all got clean shirts on!"
* * * * *
"That's the pretty white cow that gives us the nice white milk," said
the country boy to his little city friend.
"And is that the brown cow that gives us the coffee?" asked the latter.
* * * * *
A newsboy saw a dime lying on the ground in the City Hall Park. A tramp
sitting on a bench near by saw the boy pick up the piece, and claimed it
at once as his own.
"Your dime did not have a hole in it, did it?" asked the boy.
"Yes, it did," said the tramp; "give it up!"
"Well, this one has not got any hole in it, so I guess I'll keep it."
End of Project Gutenberg's Harper's Round Table, October 20, 1896, by Various