m his dreams, and said, as he
touched glasses with Registrator Heerbrand "That proceeds, respected
Herr Registrator, from the circumstance that Archivarius Lindhorst
is in reality a Salamander, who wasted in his fury the Spirit-prince
Phosphorus' garden, because the green Snake had flown away from him."

"How? What?" inquired Conrector Paulmann.

"Yes," continued the student Anselmus; "and for this reason he is now
forced to be a Royal Archivarius, and to keep house here in Dresden
with his three daughters, who, after all, are nothing more than little
gold-green Snakes, that bask in elder-bushes, and traitorously sing,
and seduce away young people, like so many sirens."

"Herr Anselmus! Herr Anselmus!" cried Conrector Paulmann, "is there
a crack in your brain? In Heaven's name, what monstrous stuff is this
you are babbling?"

"He is right," interrupted Registrator Heerbrand; "that fellow, that
Archivarius, is a cursed Salamander, and strikes you fiery snips from
his fingers, which burn holes in your surtout like red-hot tinder. Ay,
ay, thou art in the right, brotherkin Anselmus; and whoever says No,
is saying No to me!" And at these words Registrator Heerbrand struck
the table with his fist, till the glasses rattled.

"Registrator! Are you crazy?" cried the angry Conrector. "Herr
Studiosus, Herr Studiosus! What is this you are about again?"

"Ah!" said the student, "you too are nothing but a bird, a
screech-owl, that frizzles toupees, Herr Conrector!" "What!--I
a bird?--screech-owl, a frizzler?" cried the Conrector, full of
indignation; "Sir, you are mad, born mad!"

"But the crone will get a clutch of him," cried Registrator Heerbrand.

"Yes, the crone is potent," interrupted the student Anselmus, "though
she is but of mean descent; for her father was nothing but a ragged
wing-feather, and her mother a dirty parsnip; but the most of her
power she owes to all sorts of baneful creatures, poisonous vermin
which she keeps about her."

"That is a horrid calumny," cried Veronica, with eyes all glowing in
anger; "old Liese is a wise woman; and the black Cat is no baneful
creature, but a polished young gentleman of elegant manners, and her
cousin german."

"Can _he_ eat Salamanders without singeing his whiskers, and dying
like a candle-snuff?" cried Registrator Heerbrand.

"No! no!" shouted the student Anselmus, "that he never can in this
world; and the green Snake loves me, for I have a childlike mien, and
I hav