At last the fair was over, and the Egyptian fire-eater had left the town.  But the poor fellow did not go far.  In the city where he exhibited his skill he was recognized and arrested, because he had avoided service in the army.  To be sure, he was set free again after a few weeks as unqualified; but in the meantime his employer with the performing hares had gone nobody knew where, and Lipp was left solely dependent on his art, which he practised for some time in the neighboring towns and villages.

The end of his artistic career is sad and melancholy.  He fell a victim to his calling.  As an ambitious man he enlarged his artistic capabilities; he ate not only pitch but also pieces of broken glass, and an indigestible lamp-chimney was the cause of his destruction.

When I returned to the city I burned my tragedy of “Pharaoh,” and sold my cloak and Calabrian hat to an old-clothes dealer.  I was thoroughly disgusted with the career of an artist, and whenever afterwards I was inclined to relapse, Frau Eberlein would call out to me, “Do you, too, want to die from a lamp-chimney?” Then I would bend my head and bury my nose in my Greek grammar.

THE CREMONA VIOLIN

BY

E.T.A.  HOFFMANN

From “Weird Tales,” translated by J.T.  Beally.  Published by Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Councillor Krespel was one of the strangest, oddest men I ever met with in my life.  When I went to live in H—–­for a time the whole town was full of talk about him, as he happened to be just then in the midst of one of the very craziest of his schemes.  Krespel had the reputation of being both a clever, learned lawyer and a skilful diplomatist.  One of the reigning princes of Germany—­not, however, one of the most powerful—­had appealed to him for assistance in drawing up a memorial, which he was desirous of presenting at the Imperial Court with the view of furthering his legitimate claims upon a certain strip of territory.  The project was crowned with the happiest success; and as Krespel had once complained that he could never find a dwelling sufficiently comfortable to suit him, the prince, to reward him for the memorial, undertook to defray the cost of building a house which Krespel might erect just as he pleased.  Moreover, the prince was willing to purchase any site that he should fancy.  This offer, however, the Councillor would not accept; he insisted that the house should be built in his garden, situated in a very beautiful neighborhood outside the town-walls.  So he bought all kinds of materials and had them carted out.  Then he might have been seen day after day, attired in his curious garments (which he had made himself according to certain fixed rules of his own), slacking the lime, riddling the sand, packing up the bricks and stones in regular heaps, and so on.  All this he did without once consulting an architect or thinking about