"—is bad; and you go from bad to worse."
"By no means," said his Highness, "since when I was nineteen—"
"I will not believe it even of you!" cried the Baroness von Altenburg.
"I assure you," his Highness protested, gravely, "I was then a devil of a fellow! She was only twenty, and she, too, had big green eyes—"
"And by this late period," said the lady, "has in addition an infinity of grandchildren."
"I happen to be barely forty!" the Grand Duke said, with dignity.
"In which event the Almanachen dating, say, from 1710—"
"Are not unmarred by an occasional misprint. Truly I lament the ways of all typographers, and I will explain the cause of their depravity, in Vienna."
"But I am not going to Vienna."
"'And Sapphira,'" murmured his Highness, "'fell down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost!' So beware, Amalia!"