"Come along then! Now I know what sort of a fellow you are."
"And where you can go," cried Pomuchelskopp, still in anger, "there I can go, any day!" and he trotted on again, after the lantern. He should not have done that, for Langfeldt had finished his visits, and was now going to his lodgings, to get his latch-key, and a little money for playing ombre. Pomuchelskopp followed him into his room. The Herr Burgomeister put down the lantern on the table,--the thing was getting to be very amusing,--turned round, and asked, laughing:
"Will you be kind enough to tell me what you want?"
"To make my visits as well as you," cried Pomuchelskopp, in great anger at being laughed at.
"To whom, then, here?"
"That is none of your concern," cried Pomuchelskopp, "the gentleman will come," and he sat down in a chair.
"Why, this is really a comedy," said the burgomeister, and he called out of the door: "Fika, bring a light!" and when Fika came he pointed to Pomuchelskopp, and asked her, "Fika, did you ever see a pheasant? See, this is a pheasant! This is the Grand Duke's pheasant!" and Fika shouted and laughed, and ran laughing out of the room, and the burgomeister's host came in, to take a look at the pheasant, and the host's children came in, and there was such a frolic, that Pomuchelskopp finally discovered whom he was visiting. He rushed out of the house, in great wrath, and the Herr Burgomeister went softly behind him, with the lantern.
"Langfeldt," inquired the friendly Herr, at Voitel's, taking a pinch of snuff, "have you made your visits properly?" and his eyes were full of roguery.
"Let me tell you," cried the Herr Burgomeister, "now I know! I might have thought that it was you who sent that beast after me." And he told the story, and so it came about, for the gentlemen at the Landtag will have their jokes, that Pomuchelskopp was called the pheasant, and Axel, after whom he was continually trotting, was called the "pheasant's keeper," and when Malchen and Salchen came up to the Landtag's ball, in gorgeous array, they were the "pheasant-chickens." When Pomuchelskopp wrote his assent on a ballot, with a "Jah!" (instead of "Ja," yes,) there were some who were for calling him the Landtag's donkey; but it wouldn't go, the "pheasant" had got the start too thoroughly.
No, he did not enjoy himself very much, at the Landtag, for even the nobility, after whom he dawdled, and with whom he voted, would have nothing to do with him, lest they should make themselves a laughing-stock; but when he reached home, his real trials began, for his Häuning called him "Pöking," continually, and he knew what o'clock that was, and Malchen and Salchen did not stand by him, as they ought, for at the Landtag's ball they had sat, as if they were sitting on eggs. And they pricked and stung the poor, simple man and lawgiver, in his sofa corner, till a stone would have pitied him: "Pöking, what did you really do at the Landtag?" and "Father, are you going to be a nobleman soon?" and "Pöking, what do they do, any way, at the Landtag?"