“Why, my dear Baron, it’s as plain as daylight. Our constitutions will not be undermined for the shatteringly good reason that we have none to undermine.”
My hearers will agree that, logically, the position was incontrovertible, and yet I doubted.
Observing my silence, and probably guessing its cause, he took up an empty glass and poured some tea into it from the teapot at which Frau von Eckthum had been slaking her thirst in spite of my warnings (I had, alas, no right to forbid) that so much tea drinking would make her still more liable to start when suddenly addressed.
“Look here,” said he.
I looked.
“You can see this tea.”
“Certainly.”
“Clear, isn’t it? A beautiful clear brown. A tribute to the spring water here. You can see the house and all its windows through it, it is so perfectly transparent.”
And he held it up, and shutting one eye stared through it with the other.
“Well?” I inquired.