CHAPTER XL.
The next morning, when Zachary Bräsig arose, he took hold of his head with both hands, saying:
"Karl, you may congratulate yourself that I haven't a worse headache than I really have: for who could play assessor to-day? If I had followed Grammelin's cursed punch receipt I should have a whole nest of sparrows in my head this morning. But I made it after my own fashion."
"Well, were you very jolly?" asked Habermann.
"Oh, yes! the younger part of the company were quite lively; as for me, I kept myself very quiet. I sat by the town-musician, David Berger, and, by the way, Karl! what an amount that fellow can stand! I thought to myself, that belongs to his business; but one glass after another, incessantly! and at last he became what they call sentimental, he embraced me, and, with tears in his eyes, told me how little he could earn in these political times, till Herr Süssmann, who is Kurz's shopman, and I really pitied him. And Herr Süssmann proposed to the company that we should get up a fraternity ball, for David Berger's benefit; that is, a political one, where all ranks, nobility, and ritter-proprietors, and pächters and burghers and their wives and children, should come together, and shake hands, and dance with, and, for aught I know, kiss each other. And this indicium was resolved upon, and it is to be a week from Sunday. And Herr Süssmann drew up a subscription paper, and I subscribed for you and me and the Frau Pastorin and Louise."
"Bräsig, I beg of you, what would the Frau Pastorin and Louise do at a ball, or I, either?"
"But you must, for it is a noble cause."
"And you couldn't go either, Zachary, for a week from Friday is Mining's wedding day, and the next Sunday the going to church, and what would my sister say if you were absent, and at your stupid Reform-ball?"
"That alters the matter, we must have it put off, and so adieu, Karl, I will go at once to Herr Süssmann, and see about it, and then I must go to the Rathhaus, you know, to sit for four groschen an hour."
He went directly to Kurz's shop, but Herr Süssmann was not there, Kurz himself was running about, opening the drawers and looking in, and then shutting them again.