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THE RABBI OF BACHARACH.
237

mutton with garlic and horse-radish which might raise the dead, and the soup with dreamily swimming force-meat balls—the Klösschen—and my soul melted like the notes of an enamoured nightingale—and since then I eat in the cook-shop of my friend Donna Schnapper Elle."

Meanwhile they had arrived at the place so highly praised, where Schnapper Elle stood at the door greeting in a friendly manner the strangers come to the fair, who, led by hunger, streamed in. Behind, and putting forth his head over her shoulder, was the tall Nose Star, anxiously and inquisitively observing them. Don Isaac approached the landlady with exaggerated grand style, who returned his satirically deep reverences with endless curtseys, after which he drew the glove from his right hand, wound it about with the fold of his cloak, and grasping that of Schnapper Elle, drew it over his moustaches and said:—

"Senora! your eyes rival the glow of the sun! But as eggs the longer they are boiled the harder they become, so on the contrary my heart grows softer the longer it is cooked in the flaming flashes of your eyes. From the yolk of my heart flies up the winged god Amor and seeks a confiding nest in your bosom. And oh, Senora, wherewith shall I compare that bosom? For in all the world there is no flower, no fruit,