Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 3, 2025
There are junk-shops in Golosh Street that seem to have got hold of all the old nails in the Ark and all the old brass of Corinth. Madame Filomel, the fortune-teller, lives at No. 12 Golosh Street, second story front, pull the bell on the left-hand side. Next door to Madame is the shop of Herr Hippe, commonly called the Wondersmith.
Well, Solon and Herr Hippe presented such a picture, seen through the wrong end of a telescope, reduced in proportion, but alike in action. Solon's feeble body seemed to sink into utter annihilation beneath the horrible taunts that his enemy hurled at him, while the large, brave brow and unconquered eyes still sent forth a magnetic resistance. Suddenly the poor hunchback felt his arm grasped.
A few moments, therefore, brought the gypsy party to the door, when, by aid of a key which Herr Hippe produced, they silently slipped into the entry.
Hippe's store had been closed at least an hour, and the Mino-birds and Bohemian waxwings at Mr. Pippel's had their heads tucked under their wings in their first sleep. Herr Hippe sat in his parlor, which was lit by a pleasant wood-fire. There were no candles in the room, and the flickering blaze played fantastic tricks on the pale gray walls. It seemed the festival of shadows.
This sottish invitation had scarce been given, when a second extremely thick voice replied from an opposite corner, in accents so rough that they seemed to issue from a throat torn and furrowed by the liquid lava of many bar-rooms, "Brandy and water." "Hollo! who's here?" muttered Herr Hippe, flashing the light of his lantern round the shop.
I do not fear you, Heir Hippe. There are stories abroad about you in the neighborhood, and when you pass, people say that they feel evil and blight hovering over their thresholds. You persecute this girl. You are her tyrant. You hate her. I am a cripple. Providence has cast this lump upon my shoulders. But that is nothing.
Instantly from the opposite corner came the old response, still feebler than the question, a mere gurgle, as it were, of "Brandy and water." Then all was silent. The Mino-birds were dead. "They spill blood like Christians," said the Wondersmith, gazing fondly on the manikins. "They will be famous assassins." Herr Hippe stood in the doorway, scowling.
"Now, my pretty lop-sided little lover," laughed Herr Hippe, flinging Solon over his shoulder, as a fisherman might fling a net-full of fish, "we will proceed to put you into your little cage until your little coffin is quite ready. Meanwhile we will lock up your darling beggar-girl to mourn over your untimely end."
But we have men there who can make a twelve-year-old horse look like a four-year-old, and who can take you and Herr Hippe up with one hand, and throw you over their shoulders." "The good God forbid!" said the little Frenchman. "I do not love such play. It is incommodious."
Solon," answered Hippe, with a savage accent. "I hate him, and he shall die this horrid death. Ah! how the little fellows will leap upon him, when I bring him in, bound and helpless, and give their beautiful wicked souls to them!
Word Of The Day
Others Looking