"Yes, Bräsig," said Jochen, "it is all as, true as leather; we were tipped over."
"Eh, where?" said Bräsig, "how could a reasonable man, of your years, get tipped over, on his own roads? You were asleep, Jochen!"
"Good gracious, Jochen!" cried Frau Nüssler, "how you look!" and she turned him round, before the light, as if he were a piece of roast veal, on the spit, which she had just finely basted with gravy. "Gracious, Jochen! and your nose----"
"And how does the clerical gentleman look?" inquired Bräsig, holding the light to Gottlieb, in front and rear. "Well!" he said, leaving him, "and now Lining! Why, Lining, you were not tipped over! Frau Nüssler, just look at her! She has half the road from here to Gurlitz upon her clothes!"
Lining blushed deeply, and Mining wiped off the mud from her, and Frau Nüssler did the same for Jochen.
"Gracious, Jochen, how you have muddied yourself! Now, just look at it, the nice new cloak!" Jochen had purchased it for his wedding, some twenty years before. "Well, it can't be helped; I must rip it all out, and to-morrow the whole thing must be washed in the brook."
Orders were issued accordingly, and, after a little while, the two travellers were seated, in dry clothes, at the table, in the living-room. Now, for the first time, Frau Nüssler saw her Jochen's nose, in a clear light.
"Jochen," said she, "how your nose looks!"
"Yes, they said so," replied Jochen.
"Jochen," said Bräsig, "I must be an infamous liar, if I ever said that your nose was particularly handsome; but--may you keep the nose on your face!--what a nose you have on your face!"