"What, I? I am here as Herr von Kutowski's guest," answered the youth, loftily.
"That scarcely gives you the right to bid me welcome on my on domain. Kindly do me the favour to put a bridle on your joy at seeing me, till you are asked."
The sharp, forward boy collapsed, and swore fearfully to himself.
"Well, hang it all!" Leo exclaimed, flashing a glance down the table, "does no one offer me a chair, a greeting, or a glass of beer now I am on my own property again?"
Every one jumped up, and the tankard fell clattering from Uncle Kutowski's rigid hand on to the board, which it flooded from one end to the other with brown streams.
Leo acted as if this mishap made him aware of the old man's presence for the first time.
"What, uncle! You here too?" he cried. "I was under the impression that I had strayed into a party of juveniles, who were enjoying a little harmless lark behind your back, and I was about to have a drink with them. But now, of course, the matter takes a different complexion.... Do things go on like this every night, dear uncle?"
He was answered by gloomy silence. One of the stewards of outlying estates had in the meanwhile made an attempt to get out at the door unobserved, but Leo caught him by the sleeve in the nick of time.
"So, old friend," said he, "you want to be off without shaking hands? Certainly at eleven o'clock at night, or rather"--looking at the timepiece--"at eleven-forty, there is precious little to do at Halewitz. It would have been better, perhaps, not to have let yourself been seen here at all. So off with you, and make haste."
At this bidding, not one but two men disappeared through the door.