of.

'Please go on with the recitation,' said the Professor, suavely, with
his slight authority. Loerke, who was sitting hunched on the piano
stool, blinked and did not answer.

'It would be a great pleasure,' said Ursula, who had been getting the
sentence ready, in German, for some minutes.

Then, suddenly, the small, unresponding man swung aside, towards his
previous audience and broke forth, exactly as he had broken off; in a
controlled, mocking voice, giving an imitation of a quarrel between an
old Cologne woman and a railway guard.

His body was slight and unformed, like a boy's, but his voice was
mature, sardonic, its movement had the flexibility of essential energy,
and of a mocking penetrating understanding. Gudrun could not understand
a word of his monologue, but she was spell-bound, watching him. He must
be an artist, nobody else could have such fine adjustment and
singleness. The Germans were doubled up with laughter, hearing his
strange droll words, his droll phrases of dialect. And in the midst of
their paroxysms, they glanced with deference at the four English
strangers, the elect. Gudrun and Ursula were forced to laugh. The room
rang with shouts of laughter. The blue eyes of the Professor's
daughters were swimming over with laughter-tears, their clear cheeks
were flushed crimson with mirth, their father broke out in the most
astonishing peals of hilarity, the students bowed their heads on their
knees in excess of joy. Ursula looked round amazed, the laughter was
bubbling out of her involuntarily. She looked at Gudrun. Gudrun looked
at her, and the two sisters burst out laughing, carried away. Loerke
glanced at them swiftly, with his full eyes. Birkin was sniggering
involuntarily. Gerald Crich sat erect, with a glistening look of
amusement on his face. And the laughter crashed out again, in wild
paroxysms, the Professor's daughters were reduced to shaking
helplessness, the veins of the Professor's neck were swollen, his face
was purple, he was strangled in ultimate, silent spasms of laughter.
The students were shouting half-articulated words that tailed off in
helpless explosions. Then suddenly the rapid patter of the artist
ceased, there were little whoops of subsiding mirth, Ursula and Gudrun
were wiping their eyes, and the Professor was crying loudly.

'Das war ausgezeichnet, das war famos--'

'Wirklich famos,' echoed his exhausted daughters, faintly.

'And we couldn't understand it,' cried Ursu