which isn't
such an impossible thing to imagine, the men would get a pretty good
deal up above. The worst scapegraces would be handled most graciously,
as they are here on earth--where a man can do without any morals and be
loved and run after because he's got a way with him." By such
discourses the wise woman established herself in the captain's favor,
and was able to make herself very much at home with him. Often she
scolded him as if he were a schoolboy--but he took it in the
friendliest fashion.

"With a man you must never come straight out with a thing. Spread
plenty of honey about your mouth, and while they're licking it off they
get the right thing with it, what they should get. That's the only
way." So said the old woman often. And thus she gave it him roughly and
merrily, like many another clever woman, and had a submissive friend
for her pains.

The captain was foolishly vain of "Tubby's" beauty. The old friends
were sitting together one Sunday afternoon in the little house in the
Entenfang--the captain and the old actress turned sewing-teacher.
"Well, Rauchfuss has got a pretty good-looking daughter, eh, my good
Kummerfelden? Such plump, firm arms--and the walk of her! A well set up
creature--and then her red-gold hair, and her confounded eyes! Eh,
Kummerfelden, I didn't do a bad piece of work there, did I? Look at all
the generation that's growing up--can you show me her like?"

"Now, now," said Frau Kummerfelden; "you needn't be stuck up about it,
my good sir. She is more than half the daughter of her noble mother."

"Eh, what? Noble?" said the captain. "Deuce take it--beauty's the thing
in a woman. There you are!"

"You old fool!" said Frau Kummerfelden. "What was it kept your property
in such fine condition? Was it your wife's beauty, or her ability?"

"Ah, bah! Of course non-essentials have their use too. But the main
thing ... Look--she might have gone down on her knees to me, and I'd
never have married Frau Rauchfuss if she hadn't been such a fetching
little thing."

"The Lord have mercy on you men!" said Frau Kummerfelden, stirring the
sugar in her coffee. "You choose one that takes your fancy, and you
call her beautiful as long as you care for her. What sort of a life did
your wife have up there, lonely and deserted, as if she'd married a log
of wood?"

"I say, Kummerfelden! Thunder--you're saying a good deal!"

"Because it's the truth!" said Frau Kummerfelden crossly. "And a
rocking-hor