'Scriptural way, Ferdinand,' interrupted my step-mother. 'I know no poetic ways.'
'It is the same thing, meine Liebste. The Scriptures are drenched in poetry. Poetic way, I say, of referring to Jena.'
'Ach so,' said Tante Else, vague because she doesn't know her Bible any better than the rest of us Germans; it is only you English who have it at your fingers' ends; and, of course, my step-mother had it at hers.
'Tents,' continued Tante Else, feeling that as Hausfrau it was her duty to make herself conversationally conspicuous, and anxious to hide that she was privately at sea, 'tents are unwholesome as permanent dwellings. I should say a situation somewhere as doorkeeper in a healthy building was much to be preferred to living in nasty draughty things like tents.'
'Quatsch,' said Onkel Heinrich, with sudden and explosive bitterness; you remember of course that quatsch is German for silly, or nonsense, and that it is far more expressive, and also more rude, than either.
My step-mother opened her mouth to speak, but Tante Else, urged by her sense of duty, flowed on. 'You cannot,' she said, addressing Papa, 'be a doorkeeper unless there is a door to keep.'
'Let no one,' cried Papa, beating approving hands together, 'say again that ladies are not logicians.'
'Quatsch,' said Onkel Heinrich.
'And a door is commonly a—a-' She cast about for the word.
'A necessity?' suggested Papa, all bright and pleased attention.