"Aha! you are in love with Gräuben?" he said, with the right look for a guardian. "Yes; no!" I stammered. "You love Gräuben," he went on once or twice dreamily. "Well, let us apply the process I have suggested to the document in question." My uncle, falling back into his absorbing contemplations, had already forgotten my imprudent words. I merely say imprudent, for the great mind of so learned a man of course had no place for love affairs, and happily the grand business of the document gained me the victory. Just as the moment of the supreme experiment arrived the Professor's eyes flashed right through his spectacles. There was a quivering in his fingers as he grasped the old parchment. He was deeply moved. At last he gave a preliminary cough, and with profound gravity, naming in succession the first, then the second letter of each word, he dictated me the following: mmessvnkaSenrA.icefdoK.segnittamvrtn ecertserrette,rotaisadva,ednecsedsadne lacartniiilvIsiratracSarbmvtabiledmek meretarcsilvcoIsleffenSnI. I confess I felt considerably excited in coming to the end; these letters named, one at a time, had carried no sense to my mind; I therefore waited for the Professor with great pomp to unfold the magnificent but hidden Latin of this mysterious phrase. But who could have foretold the result? A violent thump made the furniture rattle, and spilt some ink, and my pen dropped from between my fingers. "That's not it," cried my uncle, "there's no sense in it." Then darting out like a shot, bowling down stairs like an avalanche, he rushed into the Königstrasse and fled. CHAPTER IV. THE ENEMY TO BE STARVED INTO SUBMISSION "He is gone!" cried Martha, running out of her kitchen at the noise of the violent slamming of doors. "Yes," I replied, "completely gone." "Well; and how about his dinner?" said the old servant. "He won't have any." "And his supper?" "He won't have any." "What?" cried Martha, with clasped hands. "No, my dear Martha, he will eat no more. No one in the house is to eat anything at all. Uncle Liedenbrock is going to make us all fast until he has succeeded in deciphering an undecipherable scrawl." "Oh, my dear! must we then all die of hunger?" I hardly dared to confess that, with so absolute a ruler as my uncle, this fate was inevitable. The old servant, visibly moved, returned to the kitchen, moaning piteously. When I was alone, I thought I would go and tell Gräuben all about it. But how should I be able to escape from the house? The Professor might return at any moment. And suppose he called me? And suppose he tackled me again with this logomachy, which might vainly have been set before ancient Oedipus. And if I did not obey his call, who could answer for what might happen?