The “Fox” was an old-fashioned house, of framed wood, with queer diamond-shaped panes to the windows, and a great armorial coat over the door, where a fox, in black oak, stood out conspicuously.
Scarcely had we entered the low arched door, when the fumes of schnaps and tobacco nearly suffocated me; while the merry chorus of a drinking song, proclaimed that a jolly party was assembled.
I already repented of my folly in yielding to the strange man’s proposal, and had he been near, would at once have declined any further step in the matter; but he had disappeared in the clouds,—the disc of his drab shorts was all I could perceive through the nebulae. It was confoundedly awkward, so it was. What right had I to hunt down the Herr Director, and disturb him in his lair. It was enough that there was no play; any other man would have quietly returned home again, when he saw such was the case.
While I revolved these thoughts with myself, my fat friend issued from the mist, followed by a tall, thin man, dressed in deep black, with tights and hessians of admirable fit; a pair of large, bushy whiskers bisected his face, meeting at the corners of the nose; while a sharp, and pointed chin tuft, seemed to prolong the lower part of his countenance to an immense extent.
Before the short man had well uttered his announcement of the “Herr Director,” I had launched forth into the most profuse apologies for my unwarrantable intrusion, expressing in all the German I could muster, the extent of my sorrow, and ringing the changes on my grief and my modesty, my modesty and my grief; at last I gave in, fairly floored for want of the confounded verb one must always clinch the end of a sentence with, in German.
“It was to see the play then, Monsieur came?” said the Director, inquiringly, for alas! my explanation had been none of the clearest.
“Yes,” said I, “for the play—but——” Before I could finish the sentence, he flung himself into my arms, and cried out with enthusiasm, “Du bist mein Vater’s Sohn!”
This piece of family information, was unquestionably new to me, but I disengaged myself from my brother’s arms, curious to know the meaning of such enthusiasm.
“And so you came to see the play?” cried he, in a transport, while he threw himself into a stage attitude of great effect.
“Yes.” said I, “to see the ‘Junker,’ and ‘Krähwinkel.’”