THE MAGICIAN'S LITTLE JOKE.

About the middle of the fifteenth century there dwelt in the Black
Forest a pretty but unfashionable young maiden named Simprella
Whiskiblote. The first of these names was hers in monopoly; the other
she enjoyed in common with her father. Simprella was the most
beautiful fifteenth-century girl I ever saw. She had coloured eyes, a
complexion, some hair, and two lips very nearly alike, which partially
covered a lot of teeth. She was gifted with the complement of legs
commonly worn at that period, supporting a body to which were loosely
attached, in the manner of her country, as many arms as she had any
use for, inasmuch as she was not required to hold baby. But all these
charms were only so many objective points for the operations of the
paternal cudgel; for this father of hers was a hard, unfeeling man,
who had no bowels of compassion for his bludgeon. He would put it to
work early, and keep it going all day; and when it was worn out with
hard service, instead of rewarding it with steady employment, he would
cruelly throw it aside and get a fresh one. It is scarcely to be
wondered at that a girl harried in this way should be driven to the
insane expedient of falling in love.

Near the neat mud cottage in which Simprella vegetated was a dense
wood, extending for miles in various directions, according to the
point from which it was viewed. By a method readily understood, it had
been so arranged that it was the next easiest thing in the world to
get into it, and the very easiest thing in the world to stay there.

In the centre of this labyrinth was a castle of the early promiscuous
order of architecture--an order which was until recently much employed
in the construction of powder-works, but is now entirely exploded. In
this baronial hall lived an eligible single party--a giant so tall he
used a step-ladder to put on his hat, and could not put his hands into
his pockets without kneeling. He lived entirely alone, and gave
himself up to the practice of iniquity, devising prohibitory liquor
laws, imposing the income tax, and drinking shilling claret. But,
seeing Simprella one day, he bent himself into the form of a
horse-shoe magnet to look into her eyes. Whether it was his magnetic
attitude acting upon a young heart steeled by adversity, or his
chivalric forbearance in not eating her, I know not: I only know that
from that moment she became riotously enamoured of him; and the reader
may a