Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 22 (US).djvu/108

 "Ah, doubtless you have heard from the grey Parrot how" answered the Student Anselmus, quite ashamed; but he stopt short, bethinking him that this appearance of the Parrot was all a piece of jugglery.

"I was there myself," said Archivarius Lindhorst; "did you not see me? But, among the mad pranks you were playing, I had nigh got lamed: for I was sitting in the punchbowl, at the very moment when Registrator Heerbrand laid hands on it, to dash it against the ceiling; and I had to make a quick retreat into the Conrector's pipe-head. Now, adieu, Herr Anselmus! Be diligent at your task; for the lost day also you shall have a speziesthaler, because you worked so well before."

"How can the Archivarius babble such mad stuff?" thought the Student Anselmus, sitting down at the table to begin the copying of the manuscript, which Archivarius Lindhorst had as usual spread out before him. But on the parchment roll, he perceived so many strange crabbed strokes ind twirls all twisted together in inexplicable confusion, offering no resting-point for the eye, that it seemed to him well nigh impossible to copy all this exactly. Nay, in glancing over the whole, you might have thought the parchment was nothing but a piece of thickly veined marble, or a stone sprinkled over with lichens. Nevertheless he determined to do his utmost; and boldly dipt in his pen: but the ink would not run, do what he liked; impatiently he spirted the point of his pen against his nail, and—Heaven and Earth!—a huge blot fell on the outspread original! Hissing and foaming, rose a blue flash from the blot; and crackling and wavering, shot through the room to the ceiling. Then a thick vapour rolled from the walls; the leaves began to rustle, as if shaken by a tempest; and down out of them darted glaring basilisks in sparkling fire; these kindled the vapour, and the bickering masses of flame rolled round Anselmus. The golden trunks of the palm-trees became gigantic snakes, which knocked their frightful heads together with