n, the prince of liars and chief of swindlers, accompanied by
his servant, Karl Buttervogel, the Sancho Panza of the story, comes to
the castle. His presence enlivens; his interminable stories, through
which Immermann satirizes the tendencies of the time, delight at first,
then tire, then become intolerable. To maintain his influence, he
suggests to the old Baron the establishment of a stock company for the
selling of compressed air, assuring this gullible old soul that hereby
his fortunes can be retrieved and his appointment as Privy Councilor can
be realized. The Baron, though pleased, enters into the proposition with
caution. But Muenchhausen, unable to execute his scheme, finds himself in
an embarrassing dilemma from which he disentangles himself by mysteriously
disappearing and never again coming to light. Emerentia has
in the meantime fallen in love with Karl Buttervogel, whom she
erroneously looks upon as a Prince in disguise. At the prospect of so
humble a son-in-law, the Baron becomes frantic, violently removes
Buttervogel from the castle, which, as a result of the Baron's ravings,
falls to the ground with a crash and a roar--a catastrophe which reminds
one of Poe's _Fall of the House of Usher_--and the Baron and Agesel are
restored to their senses.

The chief trouble with this fantastic story is that it lacks artistic
measure and objective plausibility. Immermann, omnivorous reader that he
was, wrote this part of his book, not from life, but from other books.
And even granting that he carried out his plan with a reasonable degree
of cleverness, the average reader is not sufficiently acquainted with
Kerner and Platen and their long line of queer contemporaries to see the
point, so he skips over this part of the work and turns at once to _Der
Oberhof_.

It is needless to state that Immermann never wrote a work with such a
title. Editors and publishers have simply followed the lead of readers
and brought out separately the best parts of the complete novel under
the heading of the third chapter of the second book. There is not even
final agreement as to how much of the original work should be included
in order to make a well-rounded story. The editions, of which there are
many, vary in size from seventy-five to three hundred and seventy-five
octavo pages. The best arrangement is that which includes the second,
fifth, seventh and eighth books.

Here again we meet with three leading characters--the very honest and