"But," I interposed, "it seems to me that you enjoy your comfortable room very little, spite of all its comforts, if you neither dine nor take your tea there of an evening."
"Tea!" he exclaimed, "tea! yes that is a right good beverage, but for daily use a little too sentimental. Look you--our course of life is this:--In the morning we pursue our studies over a cup of coffee, and a pipe of tobacco; then we go to the classes. About twelve o'clock we dine; then to the coffeehouse; and how much we study after that, or how we otherwise employ ourselves, you will presently see. But in the evening, we resort to the Kneip, and drink no tea, but beer; and to the Kneip we now cordially invite you.
"But don't think we despise what may be called your national beverage; for that also, comes a time. When in the long evenings we sit behind our books, and the anticipation of the examination stands like a spectre at the door, and bars it to our egress, then, praised be tea! and its black brother, coffee; it is then they who must cheer us, when the spirit of life threatens to faint, quiver, and expire. But excuse me, I must now unto the college, which I cannot to-day very well schwänzen. So fare ye well!"
And thus we parted.
N. B.--The expression Ein Kolleg schwänzen--to tail a lecture--means, to put off its attendance. The term is derived from an earlier meaning of the word schwänzen, for which the term durch-brennen, to burn through, is now used, and is equivalent to the English phrase, "to give leg-bail to your creditors." In the persiflage on the Burschen-comment, entitled "Dissertatio de Quomodone, etc.," by Martial Schluck, from which we have before quoted, it is said, "an honourable Bursche has the right not to pay his debts; that is, he may schwänzen and squiscion himself, make a squis in his shoes,--meaning that he may sacrifice his tail like a fox, who will rather lose his tail than his life; and thus will the student rather leave behind him his trunk and cloak-bag, than wait to be clapped into prison."
When a student attends a lecture which ought to be paid for, but does not pay for it, he is said to "hospitiren;" and he is allowed twice or three times to hospitiren. If, however, he does this for a whole semester, in order to devote the price of the lecture to some other object, the students call this "to shoot a lecture." The description of this term, is also thus explained by Schluck. "The student has the right to seize upon other people's property, that is, to shoot, to prefer, to lay the charge upon another. This is a new mode of putting oneself into possession of something; that is, to commit a theft of a life-and-soulless thing, and call it only a half-theft. Shooting distinguishes itself essentially from stealing. First, by the student privately conveying it away at once; and secondly, by giving the owner of the property notice of what he had done, after it is done. This mode of taking possession is not so much according to our customs as those of the Lacedæmonians, which brought no shame to any one by the statutes of Lycurgus, but rather honour and fame, to him who unobserved and in a clever style carried off any thing."
The principal objects of conveyance, are pipes, sticks, spurs, chore-tassels for the embellishment of pipes, riding-whips, and money to the amount of a doubel. What is more than that must be merely taken in loan, if it be there to take.
Friend Freisleben has, in this chapter, given us some notifications of the manner in which he amuses himself in his hours of relaxation. Yet we must hope that these are not all the fountains of enjoyment, that are flowing for his refreshment, when he finds himself exhausted with such arduous battles in the field of science. Our care indeed, is unnecessary, since the inventive head of the student has, in all times, least of all neglected this portion of his life.
But before we speak of other diversions, which our hero, partly in his own and partly in other Kneips enjoys, or without, in the free air, we must devote a few lines to that faithful companion, his dog. Some will, perhaps say, "What! is it not enough that we have to do with the wild student, must we also encounter his unmannerly hound?" But good reader, recollect yourself of the words of Wagner in Faust:
E'en the wise man, howe'er profound,
Loves, when well trained, the generous hound,--
And well deserveth he thy favour too,
The student's scholar, apt and nobly true.