They had just finished coffee at the Pomuchelskopps, and Phil, Tony and the other little ones were still hanging about the table like foals before the hayrack. They dipped bits of bread into the sugar at the bottom of the coffee-cups, and smeared their faces therewith. Then they mashed up the softened bread with tea-spoons and their fingers, and wrote their own beautiful name "Pomuchelskopp" on the table with spilt coffee and milk, glancing at their mother every now and then innocently, as much as to say, it wasn't me. Mrs. Pomuchelskopp was seated at the table, dressed in her old black gown, and watching the children to see that they were behaving themselves. Pomuchelskopp himself was lying on the sofa smoking, and looking at the picture of domestic happiness, sloppy bread and melted sugar before him. He had finished his coffee, for he always had a cup made particularly for himself, though he never got it, for Mally and Sally whose duty it was to make the coffee in turns used to drink half of the cup prepared for him, and then fill it up from the family coffee-pot. He lay back in the sofa-corner, his left leg crossed over his right according to the ordinance of Duke Adolphus of Cleves: "When a judge is sitting in the judgment-hall, let him always cross his left leg over his right," &c, and if he was not a judge, he was in point of fact more than that; he was a law-giver, and was busy thinking how absolutely necessary it was for him to attend the Mecklenburg parliament when it next met.