I met her at the door, took her hand in mine, and drew her into the bow-window. She asked me without further ceremony, to explain how the ring I had bought from her father could remain in their family now that I was the owner of it.
"Nothing easier in the world! my dear Agnes," I made answer. "I need only to slip it on your finger as an engagement ring."
She understood my explanation, and allowed me to place on the third finger of her left hand the ring for which I owed one-hundred thalers. After this ceremony I asked—as was natural—if I might seal the bargain with a kiss—
"Ha! I knew that was coming!" interrupted the chair; "we don't care to hear that sort of evidence."
"Why," pacifically interposed the prince, "Why, a kiss is nothing out of the way."
"One kiss would not be; but it would not stop at one; a second and a third—and heaven only knows how many more would follow, and—
"Pray allow me to contradict your honor," respectfully interrupted the prisoner. "There was only one. I will admit that I was about to help myself to more, but I was hindered—"
"By the white dove on your shoulder, of course!" interrupted the mayor's ironical tones.
"No, your honor, not the white dove. Just at the moment I was going to take the second kiss, there came from the street directly underneath the bow-window, the most unearthly sounds—as if a herd of angry elephants were bellowing for their supper. I never heard so hideous a noise. It was a mixture of the squealing of a wild boar; the neighing of a horse; the blare of a trumpet, and the clattering of a heavy wagon over cobbles."
"Jesu Maria! the moo-calf!" shrieked my terror-stricken betrothed, tearing herself from my arms. The next instant she had vanished, with my hundred-thaler ring.