g, that often out of painful sympathy,
and merely to stifle a wicked laugh, the tears came into my eyes. 'Man!
Barber friend!' I exclaimed: 'withhold that benignant contraction of
thy muscles; I am not smiling, thou dost but pull the corners of my
mouth apart like a spunge.' 'It boots not,' answered the honest soul,
'thy winning graces in that smile force me to return them." Well, so we
grinned at one another like apes for minutes together.

"I observed at the end of twelve weeks a striking alteration in my
physiognomy. The nose mounted and towered aloft prodigiously, as if it
would proclaim war upon my eyes and forehead, not to take into account
the really ugly contortions of the cheeks and lips, which however I
could not drop, because I had received them as a memento from my
friend. I pressed the aspiring nose down again, and once more
represented my wishes to my generous friend. Now however good counsel
seemed scarce, and an expedient hardly possible. Still he resolved, a
second Raphael, to adopt a third unexceptionable manner, and after a
few struggles he succeeded, having beforehand cautiously ascertained
towards which side the operation might be most advantageously directed,
in twisting my nose as he rested upon it; and at this point we remained
stationary, and thus inevitable fate has bent it for me; my true face,
towards which my developement instinctively tended, has furrowed me
with these folds, and deep research and speculation, flaming enthusiasm
and glowing love for goodness and excellence, have finally woven this
red tissue over the whole."

Loud laughter had accompanied this narrative. The librarian now
impetuously demanded Champagne, and the bookseller bawled for punch.
Eulenboeck, however, cried out, "Oh! ye vulgar souls! After this
heavenly ladder which I have made you climb, to take a look into
paradise, can so ignoble, mannered, modern and witless a spirit as this
punch, as it is called, enter even into the remotest corner of your
memory? This wretched brewage of hot water, bad brandy, and lemon acid?
And what have we to do in our circle with this diplomatic, sober
potation, this Champagne? A liquor that does not expand the heart and
the intellect, and, after a half debauch, can but serve, at the utmost,
to sober one again? Oh! ye profane ones!" He thumped the table; and the
rest, with the exception of Edward, answered this gesture so violently,
that with the concussion the bottles danced, and sever