Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/113



SECOND LETTER-BOX.

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HE early piping which the little thrush, last night adopted by the Quintaner from its nest, started for victual about two o'clock, soon drove our Quintus into his clothes; whose calenderpress and parallel-ruler the hands of his careful mother had been, for she would not send him to the Rittmeisterinn "like a runagate dog." The Shock was incarcerated, the Quintaner taken with him, as likewise many wholesome rules from Mother Fixlein, how to conduct himself towards the Rittmeisterinn. But the son answered: "Mamma, when a man has been in company, like me, with high people, with a Fräulein Thiennette, he soon knows whom he is speaking to, and what polished manners and Saver di veaver (Savoir vivre) require."

He arrived with the Quintaner, and green fingers (dyed with the leaves he had plucked on the path), and with a half-nibbled rose between his teeth, in presence of the sleek lackeys of Schadeck. If women are flowers—though as often silk and Italian and gum-flowers as botanical ones—then was Frau von Aufhammer a ripe flower, with (adipose) neck-bulb, and tuberosity (of lard). Already, in