Said P. C. Breagh reflectively:
"It's the rule, invariably. Men love Bismarck or lampoon him—swear by him—or swear at him. He's the devil or a demigod—there's no alternative!"
"Good!" said Mr. Knewbit, leaning back in his Windsor chair, and rubbing the ear of the ginger Tom with the toe of one of his carpet slippers. "Tell us a bit more. Anything you can lay hold of. I want to see him stand out a bit clearer in my mind."
"He gets his name from the Wendish—I've read in the Kleine Anekdotenbuch," said P. C. Breagh, "that 'Bismarck' really means 'beware of the thorns.' And there's a golden sprig of blackberry-bramble among the family quarterings, so perhaps there's something in it, after all. An ancestor of his who lived in the sixteenth century was a tailor—and a natural son of Duke Philip of Hesse, by the way! Duke Philip was a lineal descendant of St. Elizabeth of Hungary—who in her turn was descended from the Emperor Charlemagne——"
"Lor' bless my soul!" said Mr. Knewbit, rubbing his knees.
"And he—this man you want to know about!—was born the younger son of a Pomeranian country squire, and entered the University of Göttingen in 1831. They say that he permitted study to interfere so little with the more serious business of amusement that the name of Mad Bismarck was given him then, and had stuck to him even when he passed his examination as Referendar, and began to practice law in the Municipal Court of Aix-la-Chapelle."
Mr. Knewbit, drinking in the information at every pore, nodded "More"—and P. C. Breagh obliged him:
"He served his year as Volunteer at Potsdam in the Jägers of the Guard, and then went home to the paternal estate of Kneiphof, and began sowing wild oats—acres and acres of them. The officers of the garrison were a hard-drinking set of fellows, and the county Junkers scorned to be outdone by them—so they hunted and shot and danced and made love to the local beauties—they dined and supped and gambled and fought duels. In fact, they did all the things men usually do when they mean to have a high old time and don't care a damn for the consequences," said P. C. Breagh, "and when you regularly hail smiling morn with cold punch, beer, and corn-brandy, and wind up the night with quart-beakers of champagne and porter, the consequences must be——"
"A taut skin and a fiery eye next morning," interpolated Mr. Knewbit, "and a tongue like a foul oven-plate or a burned kettle-bottom. But—my stars!—what a constitution that man must have to be as hale and as hearty, and as upright as they say he is, at fifty-five, and with a family of grown-up sons! One wonders how his sweetheart ever had the courage to marry such a—such a Ring-tailed Roarer.... But Love's a thing you can't account for nohow."
"I have heard that the Fräulein Puttkammer's family objected to the engagement," said P. C. Breagh, "but he seems to have got over their prejudices in a way peculiarly his own. By betrothing himself privately to the Fräulein first, and then calling openly to inquire how the family felt about it," he added, in response to the interrogative hoist of Mr. Knewbit's eyebrows, "and taking the precaution, upon entering the room—to hug the young lady before all her friends."