A man with Sarmatian features and a Polish accent claimed for Herr von Pranken the credit of having brought the man into the house. Bertram gave Joseph a slight nudge, and proceeded to praise Herr von Pranken in the most eulogistic terms, while Joseph winked slyly, as if he would say. Just so; this shows again that the Pole is in the secret service of Herr von Pranken.
Now they speculated whether Herr von Pranken would take up his abode in the house after his marriage with Manna, for this event was regarded as a settled thing.
A gardener, who stammered a little, remarked that it was said at the village inn, that Herr Sonnenkamp had been a tailor. All laughed, and the stuttering gardener, who was the special butt of the circle, was more and more spurred on to talk, and bantered till he became blue in the face. Bertram, taking both waves of his long beard in his hands, exclaimed:—
"If any one should tell me that, I'd show him how his teeth taste."
"Just let people talk," said soothingly the head-gardener, with a smile in advance at his own wisdom, as he added, "As soon as a man gets on in the world he must make up his mind to be slandered."
One of the hostlers gave an account of a scuffle which had taken place between them and the servants of the so-called Wine-count, who reproached them with being the servants of a man whom nobody knew anything about,—who he was, or where he came from; and that one of them had gone so far as to say that Frau Sonnenkamp was a purchased slave.
The secret, and, in fact, not very edifying history of several families was now related, until the stout female cook cried out at last:—
"Do stop that talk! My mother used to say, that
"'Whether houses be great or small.
There lies a stone before them all.'"