"Why surely now he's a handsome man: pity he wears so fiery a scarf!
Shall we drink his health, gentlemen?"
"Health to the great fiend first!"
"As you please, gentlemen: it is for you to regulate the precedency.
But at least,
Here's to my aunt—the jolly old sinner,
That fasted each day, from breakfast to dinner!
Saw any man yet such an orthodox fellow,
In the morning when sober, in the evening when mellow?
Saw any man yet," etc.
"Count, farewell!" interrupted the leader of the party; and all turned round indignantly to leave the room.
"Farewell, gentlemen, as you positively will not drink my aunt's health; though, after all, she was a worthy fellow; and her plaster for gunshot wounds—"
But with that word the door closed upon the count's farewell words. Suddenly taking up a hat which lay upon the ground, he exclaimed, "Ah! behold! one of my friends has left his hat. Truly he may chance to want it on a frosty night." And, so saying, he hastily rushed after the party, whom he found already on the steps of the portico. Seizing the hand of the leader, he whispered,
"Friend! do you know me so little as to apprehend my jesting in a serious sense? Know that two of those whom you saw on my right hand are spies of the Landgrave. Their visit to me, I question not, was purposely made to catch some such discoveries as you, my friends, would too surely have thrown in their way, but for my determined rattling. At this time, I must not stay. Come again after midnight—farewell."
And then, in a voice to reach his guests within, he shouted,
"Gentlemen, my aunt, the abbot of Ingelheim,—abbess, I would say,—
held that her spurs were for her heels, and her beaver for her head.
Whereupon, baron, I return you your hat."
Meantime, the two insidious intelligencers of the Landgrave returned to the palace with discoveries, not so ample as they were on the point of surprising, but sufficient to earn thanks for themselves, and to guide the counsels of their master.