cigars, just as they do in reality; there were signs with painted butter, and
herring, clerical collars, and coffins, and inscriptions and announcements
into the bargain. A person could walk up and down for a whole day through
the streets, and tire himself out with looking at the pictures; and then he
would know all about what people lived in the houses, for they had hung
out their shields or signs; and, as grandfather said, it was a very instructive
thing, in a great town, to know at once who the inhabitants were.
And this is what happened with these shields, when grandpapa came to
the town. He told it me himself, and he hadn’t “a rogue on his back,” as
mother used to tell me he had when he wanted to make me believe
something outrageous, for now he looked quite trustworthy.
The first night after he came to the town had been signalized by the most
terrible gale ever recorded in the newspapers-a gale such as none of the
inhabitants had ever before experienced. The air was dark with flying tiles;
old wood-work crashed and fell; and a wheelbarrow ran up the streets all
alone, only to get out of the way. There was a groaning in the air, and a
howling and a shrieking, and altogether it was a terrible storm. The water in
the canal rose over the banks, for it did not know where to run. The storm
swept over the town, carrying plenty of chimneys with it, and more than
one proud weathercock on a church tower had to bow, and has never got
over it from that time.
There was a kind of sentry-house, where dwelt the venerable old
superintendent of the fire brigade, who always arrived with the last engine.
The storm would not leave this little sentry-house alone, but must needs tear
it from its fastenings, and roll it down the street; and, wonderfully enough,
it stopped opposite to the door of the dirty journeyman plasterer, who had
saved three lives at the last fire, but the sentry-house thought nothing of
that.
The barber’s shield, the great brazen dish, was carried away, and hurled
straight into the embrasure of the councillor of justice; and the whole
neighborhood said this looked almost like malice, inasmuch as they, and
nearly all the friends of the councillor’s wife, used to call that lady “the
