The waiter now went round to collect the money of the various guests who had partaken of the boat-supper; and, of course, charged the judge extra for his ordered bottle, bowing at the same time very low, as was proper to so good a customer. These little attentions at inns encourage expenditure. The judge tried at the same time the bottle, which he found empty, and applied to his two boon companions for their quota; but the students affected a sort of brutal surprise at any one having the impudence to imagine that they were going to pay their proportion; and flinging down the money for their own supper on the table, they retired. The magistrate, calling loudly for the landlord, followed them out of the room.
Essper George stood moralising at the table, and emptying every glass whose contents were not utterly drained, with the exception of the tumblers of the cloth-merchants, of whose liquor he did not approve.
“Poor man! to get only one glass out of his own bottle! Ay! call for M. Maas; threaten as you will. Your grandfather will not help you here. Blood out of a wall and money out of a student come the same day. Ah! is your Excellency here?” said Essper, turning round to our two travellers with affected surprise, although he had observed them the whole time. “Is your Excellency here? I have been looking for you through Frankfort this whole morning. There! it will do for your glass. It is of chamois leather, and I made it myself, from a beast I caught last summer in the valley of the Rhone.” So saying, he threw over Vivian’s neck a neat chain, or cord, of curiously-worked leather.
“Who the devil is this, Grey?” asked the Baron.
“A funny knave, whom I once saved from a thrashing, or something of the kind, which I do him the justice to say he well deserved.”
“Who the devil is this?” said Essper George. “Why, that is exactly the same question I myself asked when I saw a tall, pompous, proud fellow, dressed like a peacock on a May morning, standing at the door just now. He looked as if he would pass himself off for an ambassador at least; but I told him that if he got his wages paid he was luckier than most servants. Was I right, your Excellency?”
“Poor Ernstorff!” said the Baron, laughing. “Yes; he certainly gets paid. Here, you are a clever varlet; fill your glass.”
“No; no wine. Don’t you hear the brawling, and nearly the bloodshed, which are going on upstairs about a sour bottle of Rudesheimer? and here I see two gentles who have ordered the best wine merely to show that they are masters and not servants of the green peacock, and lo! cannot get through a glass. Lord! lord! what is man? If my fat friend and his grandfather would but come down stairs again, here is liquor enough to make wine and water of the Danube; for he comes from thence by his accent. No, I’ll have none of your wine; keep it to throw on the sandy floor, that the dust may not hurt your delicate shoes, nor dirt the hand of the gentleman in green and gold when he cleans them for you in the morning.”
Here the Baron laughed again, and, as he bore his impertinence, Essper George immediately became polite.
“Does your Highness go to Ems?”