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THE OLD STREET-LAMP. 299
Vienna. And here they had all the kings and er-
perors in ome picture. A house-clock, with heavy
leaden weights, kept saying: “Tick! tack!” and
always advancing, which the old folks maintained was
far better than going too slow. They were eating
their supper, while the street-lamp lay, as beforesaid,
in the arm-chair near the stove. It seemed to the
lamp as if the whole world had been turned topsy-
urvy. But when the old watchman looked at her and
spoke of all they two had lived to see through rain and
fog, through the clear, short, summer nights, or through
the long winter nights in snow-storms, that made him
long for the passage leading to his cellar—the old
lamp felt all right again. She saw everything as
plainly as if it were then happening—in truth, the
wind had enlightened her in good earnest.
The old folks were very active and industrious, and
lid not spend a single hour in idleness. On Sunday
afternoons, a book of some kind was sure to be brought
out, generally relating to travels, which was their
favourite reading. And the old man read aloud about
Africa and its vast forests, with elephants running
about wild ; while the old wife pricked up her ears,
and listened with all her might, casting a stealthy look
ever and anon towards the clay elephants that served
as flower-pots.
“1 can almost imagine I were seeing it all!” ob-
served she.
And the lamp wished so ardently that she could
have had a taper burning inside her; for then the old
woman would have seen even the minutest details as
plainly as the lamp saw them—the high trees with
their thickly entwined branches, the naked negroes on
horseback, “and whole herds of elephants trampling
down bamboos and bushes beneath their broad, heavy
eet.
“ What is the use of all my capacities, if I cannot
have a wax light 2” sighed the lamp. “ They burn
only oil and tallow, and that will not suffice.”