Rührdanz was right--I don't mean about the Grand Duke, for I don't understand such matters--but he was right in saying that Pomuchelskopp had ordered the glass coach to go to a ball, for towards evening the squire of Gürlitz might be seen seated in his carriage, dressed in his blue coat and brass buttons. By his side was his brave old wife in her yellow-brown silk gown, which reminded one both in colour and its pointed trimming of one of her own short-bread cakes, except that she was as dry and withered as a leather strap, and when she walked even on a level road, her joints rattled as much as if she had hidden a small bag of hazelnuts under her skirt. Exactly opposite were her two eldest daughters who were splendidly, very splendidly dressed, but who were also in a very bad humour because their father had insisted on their going to this ball, which was to be attended by tradesmen and their families; they had therefore determined to revenge themselves on their father by not amusing themselves, and by treating everyone as an inferior. Meanwhile they vented their wrath upon him by knocking the heavy hoops in their crinolines against his shins, and that was very cruel of them, for the wheelwright had made them new hoops that very morning of strong hazel wands.--Gustavus was seated on the box beside John Joseph the coachman. I really cannot dance with my fair readers at another ball, I am too old for that sort of thing, and besides that Rudolph's marriage only took place three days before the fraternity ball, and I did my best on that occasion. It will be sufficient this time to peep into the ball room now and then and see how everything is going on. And now imagine me seated on the bench in front of Grammelin's house on that lovely summer evening, watching the people arrive, and going after a time into the house to have a glass of punch and thus show myself to be a friend and a brother.