"Ja Wohl! Frau Rittergutsbesitzer. I have lived in the Herr Professor's house for five-and-thirty years. I have pickled his cabbage and preserved his fruit. I have minced with my own hand the pork for his sausages before they had mincing-machines in Schleswig-Holstein. I have seen personally to the smoking of his hams and fish. I make his Apfelkuchen and Nusskuchen myself, and do not buy them in the shop, like that lazy Hausfrau opposite us at No 2, who comes from that God-forgotten country England, where all the women are so badly brought up. I grant you that what I do is no more than the duty of every God-fearing German _Haushaelterin_; none the less, I do not mean all my work to go for nothing, and I will not be ousted by a hussy! In the time of the _vielbedauerten_ mother (Frau Regierungsrat Lenbach) I had no worries about his matrimonial affairs; she looked after those. But _sieh mal_, Frau Riedel, now the care of him is on my shoulders. He has no more idea of taking care of himself than a baby! He is exactly like that learned man--I think it was our great Neander--who was running out of his college one day and ran into a cow; so he pulled off his hat and said, '_Gnaedige Frau, ich bitte um Verzeihung_' ('Gracious lady, I beg your pardon'), and went on; and the week after he came tearing round the same corner, thinking, I suppose, of those heathen gods and goddesses whose pictures shame a modest woman to look at, and he ran up against a lady, so he cried out: '_Oh! du dumme Kuh! warum kommst du mir immer in den Weg?_' ('Oh, you stupid cow, why will you always get in my way?') Yes, my Herr Professor is just like that--quite as stupid, though they call him so wise and clever; and what chance has a born innocent like he is against a designing spinster of forty-five who makes him presents of _Weihnachtstollen_ at Christmas, _Oster-Eier_ at Easter, and _Geburtstagstorte_ on his birthday? I ask you what chance of escape a poor _Junggeselle_ has?