slipped without saying a word into a corner, murmuring his prayers. Less taciturn was Jäkel the Fool, a short fellow with curved legs, a full blooming, red, and laughing face, and an enormous leg-of-mutton hand, which he stretched out of the wide sleeve of his chequered jacket in welcome. Behind him a tall, lean figure showed or rather hid itself—the slender neck white feathered with a fine cambric ruff, and the thin pale face strangely adorned with an incredibly long nose, which anxiously peered about in every direction.
"God's welcome to a pleasant feast-day!" cried Jäkel the Fool. "Do not be astonished that the lane is so empty and silent just now. All our people are in the synagogue, and you are come just in the right time to hear the history of the sacrifice of Isaac. I know it—'tis an interesting tale, and if I had not heard it before, thirty-three times, I would willingly hear it again this year. And—mind you!—'tis an important history, for if Abraham had really killed Isaac and not the goat, then there would have been more goats in the world now—and fewer Jews." And then, with mad and merry grimaces, Jäkel began to sing the following song from the Agade:[1]—
- ↑ This prototype of "The House that Jack Built" is presumed to be a hynm in Seder Hagadah, fol. 23. The historical interpretation, says Mrs. Valentine, who has reproduced it in her Nursery Rhymes, was first given by P. N. Leberecht at Leipsic in 1731, and is printed in the Christian Reformer, vol. xvii.
