“Never mind that; laugh at him as he deserves, and we’ll laugh too, won’t we, Marieke?”
“Nein, liebes Madamchen,” returned the doctor, “it will be better if I don’t come—we’ll have some dinner here.”
“JUST LET THE FELLOW COME INTO OUR HOUSE.”
He went with the two women into the nearest eating-house in the village and ordered dinner, also two sheets of paper and an envelope. While the ladies were dining, he wrote a letter on one sheet, slowly and carefully, with beautiful round letters, then dashed off another more hastily, and enclosed both in one envelope, which he stamped and addressed to “Herrn Oscar Olthausen, Rechtsanwalt, Berlin.” He then directed Marieke to wait till her father was about to send away the letters with the new Altenet stamps. “Then you must keep back the one addressed to Bismarck, and post this in place of it; and then I assure you that everything will come right, without you or your mother getting into any trouble with the old gentleman.”
They remained chatting for some little time longer, and then Dr Olthausen took his leave and returned to Aix-la-Chapelle.
Early on the following day Drikus the First set out for Limburg’s metropolis. Arrived there, he turned his steps towards the barber’s shop. A young shopman came to meet him, and politely relieved him of his coat and hat.
“See here, lad,” began Bloemstein, “did you ever shave a president?”
“Why, yes, sir; only yesterday the President of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart.”
“No, I don’t mean one like that; I mean a great president.”