"And Melitta with the doctor; you with Miss Klaus--that is too absurd."
"Well, Barnewitz, it's done now, and please do me the favor not to interfere any more with my arrangements. Go quietly to your seat, the Countess Grieben is looking for you with her big owl eyes!"
"I wash my hands of it," growled Barnewitz, hurrying away.
"And I drink a bottle of champagne in honor of my successful coup d'état," grinned Oldenburg, sitting down by the little governess, just opposite Melitta and Oswald, and not far from Cloten and Hortense.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I hope you will join me in drinking, silently but enthusiastically, the health of the man who has assigned us all our places, and who, while he looked to the common welfare of all, yet has known how to fulfil the wishes of every guest. I pray you will bear in mind that a want of enthusiasm at this solemn moment would deeply wound the feelings of that man, and at the same time inexpressibly pain one of your neighbors, whom you are bound to love at least as your neighbor. Ladies and gentlemen, drink with me the health of your and my best friend, Adalbert Oldenburg!"
As a matter of course, no one within reach of the Baron's moderately strong voice dared to refuse to join in this ironical toast. The glasses clinked, and soon a lively conversation began all around the table, like fire in a bundle of straw which has been set on fire on all sides at once; that humming, chirping, chuckling, tittering, laughing conversation, in which very soon the most brilliant witticism and the most foolish remark have the same value.
"Mind your eyes, Oswald," said Melitta, in that rapid manner in which speech can hardly be distinguished from mere breathing, and when yet every syllable is distinctly heard--"Your sweet love-letters are caught on the way by profane eyes, broken open, and read."
Cloten had in vain tried to convince Hortense that it had been her husband's own wish that he should lead her to table.
"Don't be such a fool, Arthur," she said, "it is a trick of Oldenburg's, you may rely on it. Have you ever talked with Oldenburg about me?"
"Never, Hortense--parole d'honneur!"