"How-d'ye-do! How-d'ye-do!" cried Kurz as he entered the parlour. "Oh, I see, you're here too, Mr. Bräsig. How are you, old friend? I've come to speak to you about the clover-seed, Hawermann."--"Good-day!" said Baldrian to Bräsig, drawling out the word "day" till one would have thought he wanted that day to last to all eternity, "how are you my worthy friend?"--"Pretty bobbish," replied Bräsig.--"Hawermann," interrupted Kurz, "isn't it splendid seed?"--"Well, Kurz," said Hawermann, "I've seen worse seed and I've seen better. I put a little of it on a hot shovel, and as you know, if it's good seed it ought to jump off the shovel with a skip like a flea, but a good many of the grains never moved at all."--"You don't look quite so blooming, my dear Sir," continued the rector, "as on that memorable occasion when we met round the punch-bowl to celebrate the betrothals at Rexow."--"There's a good reason for that," said Hawermann, laying his hand affectionately on Bräsig's shoulder, "my dear old friend has been suffering from gout."--"I see," laughed the rector, trying to be witty, "'Vinum, der Vater, Und c[oe]na, die Mutter, Und Venus, die Hebamm, Die machen podagram.'"[4] "The seed is splendid," cried Kurz again, "you won't see finer between Grimmen and Greifswald."--"Take care, Kurz!" said Hawermann, "don't crow too loud, remember the proverb!"--"Listen!" Bräsig exclaimed, at the same moment addressing the rector. "Don't talk French to me! I can't understand you. But what do you mean by talking of Fenus? What have I and my gout to do with Fenus?"--"My honoured friend," said the rector with a deep bow, "permit me to inform you that Venus was the name given in ancient times to the goddess of love."--"I don't care about that," answered Bräsig, "she may have been anything you like, but now-a-days every stupid shepherd's dog is called Venus."--"No, Hawermann," exclaimed Kurz eagerly, "I assure you that when clover has the real purply red colour it ....."--"Yes, Kurz," was the answer, "but yours wasn't like that."--"My good friend," said the rector to Bräsig, "Venus was a goddess, as I told you before, and how a shepherd's dog ...."--"But," interrupted Bräsig, "you make a mistake in saying she was a goddess, for a Fenus was a kind of bird. Now, Charles, us'n't we to hear of a bird called the Fenus when we were children?"--"Ah, I see what you mean now," said the rector, who had received a new light on the subject. "You're thinking of the Arabian bird, the Ph[oe]nix, which builds its nest of costly spices ..."--"Humbug!" interposed Kurz. "How is it possible for any bird to build a nest with cloves, pepper, cummin and nutmegs."--"My dear brother-in-law, are you not aware that it is an old saga?"--"Then," said Bräsig, "the saga tells what isn't true, and besides that, you don't pronounce the word rightly. It isn't Ph[oe]nix