"Dear me!" sighed Frau Nüssler, "Kurz is bringing the rector with him."
"Sure enough," said Bräsig, "but he shall not incommode us much to-day, I will cut his speeches short." For they both had, not without reason, a great terror of the rector's circumstantiality.
The two guests entered, and the rector delivered a long oration upon his joy in seeing them again, and the happy opportunity of coming with Kurz; to which Bräsig replied curtly, that long legs were the best opportunities for one who was going across country, and turned away, so that the rector, while Frau Nüssler was occupied with Kurz, found his audience limited to Jochen, who listened in the most exemplary manner to the whole discourse, and finally said, "Good day, brother-in-law, sit down a little while."
Kurz was out of temper; in the first place, because he had come to give his boy a scolding, secondly, because the rector had walked him off his legs, and, thirdly, because in pulling off his coat he had taken cold, and got a fit of the hiccoughs. His crossness, to be sure, was nothing remarkable, for he was angry year in and year out, because he was a democrat, of course not a state democrat, for they didn't have such then in Mecklenburg; only a city democrat, since he made it the particular business of his life to pull public offices from the grasp of the thick-nosed baker, in the market-place, who was so horribly favored by the burgomeister. He went puffing and hiccoughing about the room, and looked, with his red, moist face and his short grizzled hair, like a fine, red, freshly cut ham, cooked in paste, well sprinkled with pepper and salt, with the gravy following the knife.
The comparison is not strictly accurate, because the knife was wanting, but Bräsig took care for that; he ran to the dresser, caught up a long, sharp carving-knife, marched directly up to the ham and said, "So, Kurz, now sit perfectly still."
"What is that for?" inquired Kurz.
"Remedy for the hiccoughs. So! Now you must look right at the point of the knife. Now I come nearer and nearer to you with the point; but you must be frightened, or it will do you no good. Still nearer,--still nearer, as if I were going to split your nose open. Still nearer--close to your eyes."
"Thunder and lightning!" cried Kurz, springing up. "Do you mean to put my eyes out?"
"Good!" said Bräsig, "good! You are frightened, and that will help you."
And it did help, truly, that is, as regards the hiccoughs, not as regards the crossness.