e signpost of that well-known
inn suddenly marched into the room and called for a bottle of wine,
the students could not have been more amazed than they were by this
unexpected entry of their revered professor. They were so astonished
that for a minute or two they glared at him in utter bewilderment
without being able to make any reply to his hearty invitation.

"Donner und Blitzen!" shouted the Professor angrily. "What the deuce
is the matter with you, then? You sit there like a set of stuck pigs
staring at me. What is it, then?"

"It is the unexpected honour," stammered Spiegel, who was in the chair.

"Honour--rubbish!" said the Professor testily. "Do you think that just
because I happen to have been exhibiting mesmerism to a parcel of old
fossils, I am therefore too proud to associate with dear old friends
like you? Come out of that chair, Spiegel my boy, for I shall preside
now. Beer, or wine, or shnapps, my lads--call for what you like, and put
it all down to me."

Never was there such an afternoon in the Gruner Mann. The foaming
flagons of lager and the green-necked bottles of Rhenish circulated
merrily. By degrees the students lost their shyness in the presence of
their Professor. As for him, he shouted, he sang, he roared, he balanced
a long tobacco-pipe upon his nose, and offered to run a hundred yards
against any member of the company. The Kellner and the barmaid whispered
to each other outside the door their astonishment at such proceedings on
the part of a Regius Professor of the ancient university of Kleinplatz.
They had still more to whisper about afterwards, for the learned man
cracked the Kellner's crown, and kissed the barmaid behind the kitchen
door.

"Gentlemen," said the Professor, standing up, albeit somewhat
totteringly, at the end of the table, and balancing his high
old-fashioned wine glass in his bony hand, "I must now explain to you
what is the cause of this festivity."

"Hear! hear!" roared the students, hammering their beer glasses against
the table; "a speech, a speech!--silence for a speech!"

"The fact is, my friends," said the Professor, beaming through his
spectacles, "I hope very soon to be married."

"Married!" cried a student, bolder than the others "Is Madame dead,
then?"

"Madame who?"

"Why, Madame von Baumgarten, of course."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the Professor; "I can see, then, that you know all
about my former difficulties. No, she is not dead, but I have reason to
b