Meanwhile he heard his wife beginning to stir in her room, and poor terrified Schnorps, who at times quaked in his shoes before his fair spouse, puzzled his head to find some remedy for his trouble. Suddenly it occurred to him that years ago he had bought a bottle of benzine which he knew must be somewhere in his room.
“HE SEIZED A BRUSH AND BEGAN TO BELABOUR THE SWALLOW-TAIL.”
He found a dozen bottles on top of the wardrobe, but how was he to know which was the one he wanted? He rummaged until he discovered one at the sight of which the certainty dawned within his dizzy brain that this was it. He spread out the unfortunate coat upon the table, poured a generous supply of the liquid supposed to be benzine upon it, and was about to rub it in with his handkerchief when a horrible sight appeared before him.
Wherever a drop of the fluid had fallen, the cloth turned red; and before the perplexed violinist could find an explanation for this remarkable metamorphosis, there appeared upon the coat an infinite number of large and small holes which sealed its doom for now and eternity.
It so happened that instead of benzine, Schnorps had laid hold of a bottle of sulphuric acid, which he had once used to clean the screws of his instrument.
When he realised what had happened, he certainly expected to go mad, and he weakly fell back in his chair, gazing fixedly upon his murdered swallow-tail. His head whirled—the new coat—his wife—the 15 thalers—the intendant—sulphuric acid—all was swallowed up in one wild eddy, and it was some time before he regained any self-possession.
Ye saints! it would never do to have his wife get hold of this! The first thing to do was to remove the article in question. Hastily he dressed himself, slipped on his felt slippers, hid the dress-coat beneath his dressing-gown, and stealthily crept upstairs, where he hid it, with many misgivings, in the utmost depths of the old wardrobe.
It was high time, for when he came back his better-half appeared upon the scene. Never had she inspired him with such terror as at this moment, and yet never since the days of their honeymoon had he bidden her good-morning as tenderly as he did to-day. She too was unusually amiable, a fact which only weighed the more upon his guilty conscience.
“Well, did you have a pleasant evening?” she asked.