[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]





IN THE BLUE PIKE

By Georg Ebers

Volume 2.



CHAPTER IV.

The ropedancer, Kuni, really had been with the sick mother and her babes,
and had toiled for them with the utmost diligence.

The unfortunate woman was in great distress.

The man who had promised to take her in his cart to her native village of
Schweinfurt barely supported himself and his family by the tricks of his
trained poodles. He made them perform their very best feats in the
taverns, under the village lindens, and at the fairs. But the children
who gazed at the four-footed artists, though they never failed to give
hearty applause, frequently paid in no other coin. He would gladly have
helped the unfortunate woman, but to maintain the wretched mother and her