nothing left for
ourselves."

"We have never gone hungry to bed, Conrad, and we need not hunger.
To-day we have coffee, and bread and butter, and to-morrow I will
receive something from my publishers from the fourth edition of my
fables. It is not much, it will be about twenty thalers, but we will be
able to live a long time on that. Be content, Conrad, and go now into
the kitchen and prepare the coffee; I am really rather hungry. Well,
Conrad, you still appear discontented. Have you another grievance in
reserve?"

"Yes, professor, I have another. The beadle tells me that the university
have offered you a still higher position than the one you now hold. Is
it true?"

"Yes, Conrad, it is true. They wished me to become a regular professor."

"And you declined?"

"I declined. I would have been obliged to be present at all the
conferences. I would have had more trouble, and if I had had the
misfortune to become rector I would have been lost indeed, for the
rector represents the university; and if any royal personages should
arrive it is he who must receive them and welcome them in the name of
the university. No, no; protect me from such honors. I do not desire
intercourse with great men. I prefer my present position and small
salary, and the liberty of sitting quietly in my own study, to a regular
professorship and a higher salary, and being forced to dance attendance
in the antechambers of great people. Then, in addition to that, I
am delicate, and that alone would prevent me from attending as many
lectures as the government requires from a regular high-salaried
professor. You must never receive money for work that you have not done
and cannot do. Now, Conrad, those are my reasons for declining this
situation for the second time. I think you will be contented now, and
prepare me an excellent cup of coffee."

"It is a shame, nevertheless," said Conrad, "that they should say you
are not a regular professor. But that is because you have no wife. If
the Swedish countess were here, every thing would be changed; your study
would be nicely arranged, and you would be so neatly dressed, that no
one would dare to say you were not a regular professor."

"But that is no offence, Conrad," cried Gellert, laughing. "In the sense
in which you understand it, I am more now than if I had accepted this
other position, for I am now called an extraordinary professor."

"Well, I am glad that they know that you are an extraordinary
pro