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 went off suddenly, my hair was singed or my forehead burned.  Nothing worse ever happened, for the angel was protecting me with his shield.

That was the element of fire.  But we also came in contact with water, which was not to be wondered at in a seaport.