"Can I go as I am, do you think?" I asked, suddenly halting, with a glance at my dress, which was plain and neat, it is true--I was always neat--but not exactly the thing for company.
"Why not?" said Arthur. "What difference does it make? And, besides, we have not a minute to spare."
Arthur, who was in his best clothes, had not looked at me, nor slackened his pace in the least. We had not a minute to spare, that was true enough, for as slipping through some narrow alleys we reached the harbor, we heard the bell ringing on board the steamer that was lying at the wharf just ready to start. The sturdy figure of the captain was seen standing upon the paddle-box. We pushed through the crowd on the wharf, ran up the gang-plank, which they were just hauling in, and mingled with the gay throng on deck, as the wheels began to turn.
CHAPTER II.
"How you startled me!" said Frau von Zehren, seizing her son by both hands. "We began to think, what was really impossible, that Professor Lederer had refused you permission. You see now, Zehren, that I was right."
"Well, it is all right now," replied the steuerrath.[[2]] "The young ladies were inconsolable at the prospect of your absence Arthur--or am I saying too much, Fräulein Emilie and Fräulein Elise?" and the steuerrath turned with a polite wave of his hand to the young ladies, who tittered and nodded their dark broad-brimmed straw-hats at each other.
"And now you must speak to your uncle," he went on; "but where is your uncle, then?" and he ran his eye over the company that was moving about the deck.
The Commerzienrath Streber came bouncing up. His little, light-blue eyes glittered under bushy gray brows, the long peak of his old-fashioned cap was pushed back from his bald forehead, the left sleeve of his loose blue frock-coat, with gold buttons, had slipped half off his shoulder, as he hurried along on his little legs, cased in yellow nankeen trousers:
"Where has that rascal John put the----?"
"Allow me, brother-in-law, to present my Arthur----."