ord it's Greek ye're talking to me." And
Greek it very possibly was, for my young friend, though as good across
country as any man in his county, has not the fine feeling and tender
perception of beauty which may be found elsewhere, dear madam.

"Tell me about Speck, Blake, and Kalbsbraten, and Dorothea, and
Klingenspohr her husband."

"He with the cut across the nose, is it?" cries Blake. "I know him well,
and his old wife."

"His old what, sir!" cries Fitz-Boodle, jumping up from his seat.
"Klingenspohr's wife old!--is he married again?--Is Dorothea, then,
d-d-dead?"

"Dead!--no more dead than you are, only I take her to be
five-and-thirty. And when a woman has had nine children, you know,
she looks none the younger; and I can tell ye that when she trod on my
corruns at a ball at the Grand Juke's, I felt something heavier than a
feather on my foot."

"Madame de Klingenspohr, then," replied I, hesitating somewhat, "has
grown rather--rather st-st-out?" I could hardly get out the OUT, and
trembled I don't know why as I asked the question.

"Stout, begad!--she weighs fourteen stone, saddle and bridle. That's
right, down goes my pipe; flop! crash falls the tumbler into the fender!
Break away, my boy, and remember, whoever breaks a glass here pays a
dozen."

The fact was, that the announcement of Dorothea's changed condition
caused no small disturbance within me, and I expressed it in the abrupt
manner mentioned by young Blake.

Roused thus from my reverie, I questioned the young fellow about his
residence at Kalbsbraten, which has been always since the war a favorite
place for our young gentry, and heard with some satisfaction that
Potzdorff was married to the Behrenstein, Haabart had left the dragoons,
the Crown Prince had broken with the ---- but mum! of what interest are
all these details to the reader, who has never been at friendly little
Kalbsbraten?

Presently Lynch reaches me down one of the three books that formed his
library (the "Racing Calendar" and a book of fishing-flies making up
the remainder of the set). "And there's my album," says he. "You'll
find plenty of hands in it that you'll recognize, as you are an old
Pumpernickelaner." And so I did, in truth: it was a little book after
the fashion of German albums, in which good simple little ledger every
friend or acquaintance of the owner inscribes a poem or stanza from some
favorite poet or philosopher with the transcriber's own name, as thus:--