THE EGYPTIAN FIRE-EATER
BY RUDOLPH BAUMBACH.
"NEXT Easter he must go to N to school.—Fact.—It is high time; he is eleven years old, and here he is running wild with the street-boys.—That's what I say."
He, that is, I, hung my head, and I felt more like crying than laughing. I had passed eleven sunny boyhood years in the little country town, I stood in high esteem among my playmates, and would rather be the first in the ranks of my birthplace than second in the metropolis.
Through the gray mist, which surrounded my near future like a thick fog, gleamed only one light, but a bright, attractive light; that was the theatre, the splendor of which I had already learned to know. The white priests in the "Magic Flute," Sarastro's lions, the fire-spitting serpents, and the gay, merry Papageno,—such things could not be seen at home; and when my parents promised me occasional visits to the theatre, as a reward for diligence in study and exemplary conduct, I left the Eden of my childhood, half consoled.
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