Something very unusual happened between Christmas and New-year's-day. Joseph Nüssler drove up to the farm at Pümpelhagen in the phaëton and wearing an enormous blue cloak with seven capes.--He could not get out of the carriage, he said, for he had been away from home for a good hour and a half, and had only called to say that the clergyman, and his family and Bräsig were coming to a party at his house on Sylvester's day, and that he wanted his brother-in-law to join them with his two young people, and he, for his part, would as host provide a good bowl of punch for the evening's entertainment. As soon as he had finished this long speech, he shut up completely, and when Hawermann had accepted his invitation, and Christian had begun to turn the carriage, he merely muttered something like: "Good-bye then, brother-in-law," from beneath the seven capes, so Christian turned his head round and called out: "The mistress told me to say that she expected you to come to coffee." Frank wrote and told Fred, who was still in Rahnstädt with his mother, of the invitation, at the same time telling him that as his holiday was over he had better go straight to Rexow on the last day of the year, and then he could return to Pümpelhagen with Hawermann and him in the evening. A regular thaw had set in before Sylvester's day, and when Hawermann and Frank arrived at the muddy farm-yard at Rexow, they saw Joseph Nüssler standing in the doorway with bent knees. He was dressed in the black coat and trousers that his wife had given him at Christmas, and as he had put on the red cap which Mina had crocheted for his Christmas present, he looked in the distance exactly like a stuffed dignitary of the church. Bräsig, however, pushed him out into the yard, saying: "Show yourself, Joseph. Do _les honours_ properly, so that Charles' young nobleman may see that you know something of life."