Mrs. Behrens found Bräsig in the parlour. Instead of sitting on the sofa, or on a chair like a reasonable mortal, he had perched himself on the edge of the table, and was working off the excitement caused by Pomuchelskopp's snub, by throwing his legs about like weaver's shuttles. "He had me there!" he muttered. "The Jesuit!"--When Mrs. Behrens came in, Bräsig got off the table, and exclaimed:[7] "What is it, when one has called a man by his Christian name for forty years, and when one on meeting that man addresses him as one has been accustomed to do, and meets with a frigid 'Mr. Bailiff Bräsig' in return?"--"Ah, Bräsig ....."--"That is what Pomuchelskopp has just done to me."--"Let the man alone! Just fancy what he did here," and then she told the whole story. Bräsig was angry, very angry, he rushed up and down the room puffing and blowing, and making use of such strong language that Mrs. Behrens would have bidden him be silent, if she had not been in as great a rage as himself; at last he threw himself into a corner of the sofa, and stared moodily at the opposite wall without uttering another word. The clergyman soon afterwards joined them, and his wife looked at him enquiringly. "She is watering the flowers," he said with a reassuring smile, and then he began to pace the room thoughtfully. At length, turning to Bräsig, he said: "What are you thinking about, my friend?"--"The punishment of hell--I am thinking of the punishment of hell, reverend Sir."--"And why?" asked Mr. Behrens.--Instead of answering, Bräsig sprang to his feet, and said: "Is it true, Sir, as you once told me, that there are mountains that vomit fire?"--"Certainly," said the pastor.--"And is it a good or bad thing for man that they do so?"--"The people who live near these mountains regard it as a good thing, because it saves them from having such violent earthquakes."--"Ah, well," said Bräsig, apparently rather dissatisfied with the answer he had received. "But," he asked, "do the flames come out of a mountain such as that in the same way as out of one of our chimneys when it is on fire?"--"Something like it," replied the clergyman, who had not the faintest idea what Bräsig was aiming at.--"Then," said Bräsig with a stamp of his foot, "I wish that the devil would seize Samuel Pomuchelskopp, and put him on the top of a horrible fire-spouting mountain such as you have described, and roast him there for a little."--"Ugh!" cried little Mrs. Behrens. "Bräsig, you are nothing better than a heathen. How dare you express such a wish in a Christian parsonage?"--"Mrs. Behrens," said Bräsig, throwing himself once more into the corner of the sofa, "it would be a benefit to humanity, and it is just the sort of benefit that I should be the first to grant to Samuel Pomuchelskopp."--"Dear Bräsig," remonstrated the clergyman, "we must not forget that when those people spoke so offensively they did not intend to hurt our feelings."--"It's all the