“Ah, so,” she remarked, greatly relieved—“in the wardrobe! Yes, yes! Well, come and have your breakfast, Gottlieb; I am coming down in a minute.”
With these words she walked out, and now it was Schnorps’ turn to take a deep breath of relief.
He finished dressing and gradually became more tranquil—but it was the tranquillity that precedes a mighty storm.
The reader can readily imagine what followed.
After a pause of ten minutes, the shrill voice of Frau Sally rang through the house in a manner which made all the inmates start and tremble. Intending to return the borrowed coat to its rightful possessor, she had discovered the catastrophe, and raged like a lunatic.
At first Schnorps tried to defend himself and to comfort her, but when he began to understand all the details and complications of the hapless tale,—when he heard that he had ruined his neighbour’s coat, and that his own had long ago gone to perdition by means of his wife’s thoughtlessness and the old seamstress’s stupidity, then his wrath knew no bounds.
It was really too much. To have to pay for two new dress-coats, and to have none! it was death to him, it would bring him to an untimely grave.
I will cast the mantle of Christian charity over the ensuing scene; but to this day the neighbours talk about the row that took place at the house of the Schnorpses after the general’s party.
Fritz Brentano.