"Given what up?"
"Getting married. I shall take the pension from my gracious Herr Count."
"Well, Bräsig, I would do that, in your place."
"Eh, Karl, it is all very well to talk; but it is a hard thing for a man of my years to give up all his cherished hopes, and go to a water-cure; for Dr. Strump is determined to send me there. I don't suppose Dr. Strump knows anything about it, but he has had the accursed gout himself, and when he sits by me and talks so wisely about it, and talks about Colchicum and Polchicum, it is a comfort to think that such a learned man has the gout too."
"So you are going to a water-cure?"
"Yes, Karl; but not before spring. I have made my plans; this winter I shall grumble along here, then in the spring I will go to the water-cure, and by midsummer I will take the pension, and go to live in the old mill-house at Haunerwiem. I thought at first I would go to Rahnstadt, but there I should have no house rent-free, and no village, and they would take me for a fat sheep and fleece me and skin me; it would be contemptible, and also too expensive."
"You are right, Bräsig; stay in the country, it is better for you; and stay in our neighborhood, for we should miss you sadly, if we did not see your honest old face, every few days."
"Oh, you have society enough; you have these young people, and, I was going to say, old Bröker at Kniep, and Schimmel of Radboom would be glad to send you their boys also. If I were you I would put on an addition to the old farm-house, to have plenty of room, and establish a regular agricultural school."
"That does very well for a joke, Bräsig. I have enough to do with these."
"Yes? How do they get along."