Friday, the marriage day of Rudolph and Mina, had come, and the weather was as beautiful as it ought always to be at Whitsuntide. Beside the modest farm house at Rexow Schulz the carpenter had erected a peculiar looking building by Joseph Nüssler's orders. From the outside, the building was not much of an ornament to the place, for it was made of rough planks nailed together, and was very like a common shed. But the inside of this "work of art" was very different. The walls were hung with sky-blue and yellow carpets, that is to say, one half of the room was hung with blue and the other half with yellow, and the reason of there being two colours was that there was not enough of the one to hang so large a hall, to be got in all Rahnstädt, especially when it was wanted in a hurry. There were six great beams put across to support the roof, for Schulz refused to undertake the business unless he was allowed to have the beams; indeed he declared that there ought by rights to be nine supports, the span of the roof was so great. Now the truth was that the building was much too large, and the expense of it too great for such an occasion, but Joseph knew nothing of carpentry, and Mrs. Nüssler was too busy seeing that there was sufficient for her guests to eat and drink to be able to attend to anything else; while Bräsig was far too grateful to Schulz for his support at the Reform club to overlook and curtail his plans, so that Mr. Schulz had his own way in everything, and put up the six beams without anyone saying him nay. To each of these beams Bräsig fastened Chinese lanterns, after which Christian, the coachman, bestrode the beams in buckskin breeches every day for a week while festooning them with garlands of oak leaves; he succeeded in making them look beautiful, but at the expense of his breeches which the rough wood tore to tatters. Joseph seeing this took the price of a new pair out of his red purse, for he wanted everyone to be happy on his daughter Mina's wedding day, and he knew what would please Christian. "Mother," he called to his wife, "Come and look. What else can be done now?"--"It looks very nice," she said, "but, good gracious, we must put candles in those lanterns." She was going away when a voice addressed her from the clouds, that is to say, from the clouds of oak leaves, and at the same moment a man's head showed itself amongst the foliage, and the voice went on solemnly: "That's attended to already, Mrs. Nüssler." When she looked up, she saw the jolly red face of her old lover Bräsig peering down at her through the oak leaves and tallow candles, for he had tied the candles round his neck to keep his hands free for climbing. As soon as he had finished he came down, and the three stood side by side looking at the effect of the decorations. "Really Joseph," said Bräsig, "its just like one of the fairy palaces in the thousand and one nights that I read about last winter in one of the books I got from the lending library." And Joseph