"Well," interrupted the father, "and what are you?"
"I? I am a human being—in other words, a citizen of the world."
That his son should call himself cosmopolitan mattered little to Adler, but he was much hurt by the wholesale relegation of Germans to the class of unclean animals.
"I thought, my dear Ferdinand, that you might have learnt some sense for the sixty thousand roubles you have spent."
The son flung away his cigar and fell on his father's neck.
"What an excellent father you are!" he exclaimed, kissing him. "What a fine example of a real, stereotyped, conservative Baron! Well, don't frown—cheer up! Come, don't look so glum!"
He seized him by his hands and drew him into the middle of the room. Tapping his chest, he said:
"What a chest! ... what calves! If I had a young wife, I should know who to be jealous of. And you really mean to say all the same that you agree with these dead and stale theories? 'The devil take the Germans and their cookery!' That is a motto worthy of the age and of strong men."
"You must be crazy," interrupted the father, somewhat pacified. "But what are you if you have ceased to be a German?"
"I?" replied Ferdinand with mock seriousness. "Among Germans I am a Polish nobleman, Adler von Adlersdorf; among Frenchmen I am a republican and a democrat."