Pooh, what did it signify giving the old name to this lackey? This name appeared to him so repugnant, thrown off for good like a worn-out shoe; it was so hard to understand how he had borne it so long, without being ashamed of it before the whole world. Finally Sonnenkamp answered with evident condescension:—
"I have been ordered to wait upon His Highness."
He felt badly to be obliged to use the word "ordered" before Joseph—he, Sonnenkamp, had been "ordered"—but he wished to show the footman at any rate that he was acquainted with court phraseology.
The footman pressed a telegraphic bell; a valet dressed in black appeared at the head of the staircase, and said that the Herr Baron had been expected for two minutes, and must make all the haste possible. It seemed almost as if an avenging angel from heaven were announcing here below some shortcoming or transgression.
With trembling knees Sonnenkamp stumbled up the carpeted staircase; he had to draw on his gloves on the way up, saying silently to himself meanwhile:—
"Keep yourself easy now."
At the top of the staircase a second valet appeared, white-haired, in short black knee-breeches and high black gaiters, and said:—
"Do not hurry, Herr Sonnenkamp, His Highness has not returned yet from the drill ground."
Sonnenkamp felt like knocking the first valet down for having put him into such a state of anxiety. He regretted that he had commissioned Joseph to give every one of the servants a piece of gold; he hoped that Joseph, after all, was a rogue, and would keep the gold for himself, and give the cursed attendants none of it.
The white-haired valet conversed freely with Sonnenkamp, and informed him, that he had been with Prince Leonhard in America; it was a hateful country, without order and without manners; he thanked God, when he got home again.