The coat was somewhat tight, which fact caused its wearer to remark, as he was putting it on, that he was really growing stout in spite of his moderate way of living.
Poor innocent Schnorps!
The musical performance had passed off greatly to the satisfaction of the old general, and the ensuing excellent supper was no less to the satisfaction of his guests. The bass violinist indulged himself most freely in the good things set before him, and manifested a degree of steady perseverance as if he had fasted for a fortnight to fitly prepare himself for this special feast. He left nothing undone, plateful after plateful vanished, one glass of delicious wine after another disappeared in the bottomless pit of his eating apparatus, and whenever he thought himself unobserved he helped himself freely to generous handfuls of sweets, depositing them in the voluminous pockets of his dress-coat.
Ah, he was a kind father, when he had nothing to lose thereby, and he was quite willing to be a bringer of dainties to his dear ones at home.
The guests remained until very late, and of course Schnorps was the last to go. It was somewhere near two in the morning when he reeled home in a condition which really put every well-intentioned cab-driver under the moral obligation of turning out for him.
Arrived at the door of his house, he indulged in some profoundly philosophical reflections about the preposterous size of keys, and the smallness of the corresponding keyholes—so profound, in fact, that he sat for a long, long time upon the stone-steps, his head buried in his hands, and his eyes closed, until at dawn a cool breath of air roused him from his meditations, so that he rose shivering and passed into the house.
After several hours of refreshing sleep he awoke in no very enviable condition. He looked about him with wondering eyes, and suddenly he opened them to abnormal width as if to pierce the object upon which they fell.
It was the new swallow-tail. Merciful heavens, how it looked! During his siesta on the door-steps he had sat upon the cream-filled candies he had in his pocket, and the mixture of chocolate, sugar, and fruit had formed into a sticky crust on the tails of his coat which was truly horrible to behold.
The bass violinist jumped out of bed at a single bound, and examined the luckless coat, which in the very flower of its youth had been called upon to endure such hardships.
“When my old woman sees that, there’ll be a row,” he muttered, passing his hand desperately through his bristling locks. He seized a brush and began to belabour the swallow-tail with an amount of energy such as he had never before displayed; but although his perseverance was rewarded by the disappearance of some of the smaller stains, the large blurs which had been caused by the crushed chocolate-drops would yield to no amount of brushing, the less so as they were still moist, and by rubbing acquired a more formidable appearance.