Washes its wall on the southern side’—
Don’t you recollect, Fred? They couldn’t get rid of them, and one day an old fellow came into town and offered to pipe them out for a thousand dollars or whatever it was, and they took him up. But when he had done it, and the rats were all drowned in the river, they wouldn’t stick to the bargain, and so he struck up his pipe again, and this time all the children followed him—why, what’s the matter, Fred?”
“The young gentleman is ill,” exclaimed the Portier, and would have rushed off for a doctor, had not Fred interfered.
“No! no!” impatiently, “I’m not sick, Tom; but don’t you see? Is it so?” turning to the Director, “Is that the story?”
The Director nodded. He was flattered by their interest, and besides nothing that an American did ever surprised him.
“Evidently the young gentleman has read it,” he said. “All the children in town followed him as far as the mountain side, and then, when their fathers and mothers thought they could go no further, the mountain opened and they were all swallowed up—all, that is, but one little boy who was dumb, and another who was lame. This was the street they went down. On the Rattenfangerhauser opposite is a tablet commemorating the event; and ever since that time there has been no music played in the Bungenstrasse. Even if a bridal procession goes through the street the music must not play. And the tune which you were whistling was the tune the Piper played. It was scored at the time by the Kapellmeister, and every one in Hameln knows it, just as one knows the Wacht am Rhein; but no one may play it, or whistle it, or sing it on the streets. Of course, if the young gentleman had known it was forbidden he would not have whistled it.”
“Of course not,” said Fred, abstractedly. “Where is the house with the inscription on it? Can we see it?”
“Certainly,” said the Director. “It is not yet too dark. The house is yonder on the corner of the Osterstrasse.”