Certainly, no one suspected such bloodthirsty designs in the quiet youth who lounged awkwardly against the doorpost as the members of the Männerchor climbed, laughing and talking, up the steep winding staircase that led to the Concert Hall, most of them pausing to chaff “Janitor Franz,” as they went by. Franz was not good at chaff; he never could think of anything clever enough to say until the occasion was past. Then he thought of a plenty, he said. Sometimes he confided some of the things he ought to have said to Polly, who laughed at him undisguisedly.
“If you were a soldier, Franz,” she said, “you’d go after your ammunition just as the battle was beginning.”
As usual Franz only grinned in reply, but later in the evening he suddenly exclaimed aloud, “Not if somebody I can imagine were on the other side.”
Several persons standing by looked at him in surprise; but Franz did not deign to explain that the imaginary somebody was Polly’s possible husband.
In truth Franz was not stupid, though the connection between his mind and tongue did not act as rapidly as might have been wished. But give him time and he could think as clearly and plan as well as anybody. And thus on this Sylvester Night it was beautiful to see how evident he made it to all men that Polly belonged to him. He surrounded her with his own family, of whom Tina, recently married, was his confidant, and highly approved his choice. The pastor was amused, but unconcerned, as at something belonging to a distant and improbable future; and Gretchen, who still held fast her own immunity from accident, was mildly sarcastic and coolly critical. Polly did not rebel; she liked the pastor’s family, even to Lottie, now grown stouter than ever, and apt to drop asleep on very small provocation. Tina and Polly were fast friends; and, as for Franz himself, his devotion was too absurd for any sensible person to consider seriously.
It was the last hour of the old year, and “Damenregiment” was solemnly proclaimed by the Herr President. The ladies, he said, who for all the year had been under the rule of their lords and masters, for that one hour, were to have full sway. They were to ask, and their partners were not to refuse, to tread a measure devised for the total overthrow of the nobler sex. In the “Männerchor Cotillon” the dancers stood in a circle as in “Tucker.” In the midst stood a table and chair, the former bearing favors and a nightcap. Up to this table each conqueror waltzed her chosen victim, and, either decorated him with a favor—in which case he waltzed her away again,—or—put the nightcap on his head. In which case, he naturally remained in his place until released by some more gracious Tänzerin.
Great was the fun and loud the laughter; many an old score was paid off by a specially unbecoming arrangement of that yellow tissue-paper cap, with its full white frill and long floating strings; many a shy old bachelor was hunted out from his refuge in the gallery, and made, as he keenly felt, a scorn and hissing in the sight of all men. Polly thoroughly enjoyed it. She chose the prettiest favor she could find for Karl Metzerott, who was her first partner, and who, simply to tease Franz, improved his opportunity to keep her to himself so long that not a few gossiping eyebrows went up in consequence. Polly, however, being filled with compassion at the sight of Franz chained, Andromeda-like, to that fatal chair (though when duly capped he rather resembled Medusa), raised him to the seventh heaven by releasing him.
“It must be nearly twelve,” she said. “Ought not you to look after that dynamite bomb, or whatever it is, that is to explode the New Year in upon us?”
Franz grinned; this time his answer was all ready.
“I’ve got nothing to do with that,” he said, “that’s the president’s business. They would not trust me, anyway; I’m too young. I know who I’m going to wish a happy New Year to, Miss Polly, first of anybody here.”