"Ah, I'm afraid it might be long: you would regret having asked to hear it."
"I don't often regret what I do. But ingratitude! Does one go into prison in the alp for that?"
"It may happen!"
"But in a private castle?"
"Sir, let me tell you what you are not perhaps aware of, that among the ancestors of his lordship on the distaff side have been several Reichsunmittelbarer-Fürsts, and that till late times the lords of this castle have been rechts-fähig" (able to make private laws).
"Quite so, quite so," said I, "but still, a prisoner in a private castle ... in our times...."
"It is a mere nothing; you should not let that trouble you."
"But is Father Dees—still a prisoner, if one may ask?"
"Surely one may ask: there is no harm in asking, you know. But all that was five long years ago, of course. Here, however, is your friend, the connoisseur, at last."
Langler now at last joined us. As we set out afresh a youth with ringlets and a velvet coif came up blushing, to be presented by Herr Tschudi as "Mr Court-painter (Hof-maler) Friedrich." "But has the baron a court?" I asked, to which Herr Tschudi answered: "not in strict etiquette any longer perhaps; but it amuses the baron to keep up a pretence of the old sovereign rights, and, being a dear heart at bottom, he is ever fond of pets, of whom our friend, the court-painter here, is one."