Whoever drinks the Magic Flask thereof
Forgets all lapse of time
And wanders ever in the fairy season
Of youth and spring.
Come join me in the mountains
At mid of night
And there I promise you the Magic Flask.
And so at mid of night Rip fell for the promise of wandering "in the fairy season," as so many have done at the invitation of a man who has "made a little something at home which you couldn't tell from the real stuff." Rip got out of it easily. He simply went to sleep for twenty years. You ought to see a man I know.
There is a note in the front of the volume saying that no public reading of "Rip Van Winkle" may be given without first getting the author's permission. It ought to be made much more difficult to do than that.[pg 200]