"If you hold your office from above, probably the necessary understanding for it has not been forgotten."
"Doctor!"
"Herr von Krossow."
This conversation was hardly meant for my ears, at least on the chaplain's side, who spoke throughout, even to his last exclamation, in the gentle, deprecatory tone of wounded innocence, and now, with a pitying shrug of the shoulders, turned away and joined the others.
That game-cock, the doctor, whose antagonist had so unexpectedly quitted the field, wore an air of blank surprise for a moment, then burst into a hoarse crowing laugh, shook his arms like a pair of wings, and turned suddenly to me, as if he felt the greatest desire to turn his baffled pugnacity upon me.
"You would be acting more sensibly to go to your room."
"I have only been waiting for your orders."
"And now you have them; and I will see to their prompt execution myself."
He took my arm and hurried me so rapidly away, that I had hardly time to bid the company good-night. His ire had not evaporated: he snorted, he grunted, he clicked with his tongue, and growled at intervals: "The scamp--the scamp--the scamp!"
"You seem to have no very high opinion of our chaplain," I said.