"I have been in the dullnesses of the capital: and there you can prolong your life; for every day is as long as two."
"Old, old!" cried the drinkers. "Give us something new!"
"Something new! I tell you many lies have no truth in them, and those often the best. But go out among the boats yonder; there's a jolly life going on in the cabin. Each one brings his own cook-book to the wedding, and then they marry the messes together."
The speaker was ridiculed on all sides for having nothing but such nonsense, such dry husks, to give them.
"If you will keep quiet, I will tell you a story; but first, one of you must go out to the Rhine, that he may be able to bear me witness afterwards that my story is true, as the old forester says."
A cooper was sent out to the boat that lay at anchor in the Rhine, and, after letting him know what he was to inquire about, the man began,—
"I do have the luck of falling in with the best stories! they come without my looking for them."
"Let us hear! let us hear! Is it about that big Sonnenkamp, or about the handsome Countess?"
"Ah, bah! that would be stale: this is one fresh from the oven. It is called the loves of the 'Lorelei' and the 'Beethoven,' or a sucking pig as matchmaker. Oh, yes! you may laugh, but you will see that it is all true. To begin, then. You know the steward of the 'Lorelei?'—the great Multiplication-table they call him. A man of standing he is, and an honest one, too; for he honestly confesses, that, by a skilful adding up of accounts, he has added together a pretty little property for himself. Now, he is single, frightfully so. He can eat and drink, but"—
"Yes, yes; we know him. What next?"