'Oh, say it!'
'Leave my roof at once!'
'Mamma, it is close on midnight,' urged Ernestine piteously.
'Silence, minx!'
Charlie's face had flushed to the temples at a tone and command so unusual and so humiliating.
'Oh, mamma,' urged Ernestine, attempting, but in vain, to catch her mother's hand, 'spare me and pardon him!'
'Him? Who!'
'Carl.'
'You call him Carl already—and this to my face! This intruder, who, though in the king's uniform, is little better in the scale of society than a poor Handwerks-Burschen!'
Charlie now grew deadly pale at this insulting comparison, but restrained his rising anger for the sake of Ernestine, who said, piteously: