"Bah! needle-guns!" cried old Grois. "Now it is to be the needle-guns that have done everything; at first everyone said it was the generals' fault, and now the generals say it was the needle-guns. I hold to it they were right at first, and that if the Prussians had had our generals, their needle-guns would not have helped them much."
"Happy is he who forgets what cannot be mended," cried Fräulein Gallmeyer; "nothing can be done against the Prussians, they surpass the gods!"
"Why this sudden admiration for the Prussians?" asked Knaak.
"Well, you know," said the Gallmeyer, "it is true they do surpass the gods, for one of our poets who has written such lovely rôles for my friend the Wolter says," and here she placed herself in a comically pathetic attitude, and imitating exactly the voice and manner of the great actress of the Burg Theatre, repeated: "'Against folly even the gods strive in vain!' Well, the Prussians have not striven against folly in vain!" she cried, laughing.
"Pepi," said old Grois in a grave voice, "you can say what you please about me, and the rest of the world; but if you make the misfortunes of my dear Austria the subject of your wit, we shall quarrel!"
"That would be frightful!" cried the Gallmeyer, "for I should then in the end be forced"--and she looked at him with a roguish smile.
"Well, what?" he asked, already pacified.
"To strive in vain with old Grois," she cried, and let just the tip of her tongue appear between her fresh lips, whilst she twirled round on the point of her toe.
"And did I speak sensibly to such a creature?" cried the old actor, half displeased, half laughing.
The Czardas was at an end, and the different groups moved on.