I have good reasons of my own for prefacing what has to follow with all this philosophy, because I want to get the reader into such a frame of mind that he may not make too great a fuss about what the advocate is going to do now: it was really nothing but a harmless piece of fun. As the be-powdered lungs of the auctioneer were more adapted to wheezing and coughing than to shouting, he took the auction-hammer from this hammer-man and sold off the things himself. True, he only did it for about half an hour, and only auctioned his own things; and even then he would have thought twice about taking the hammer in hand and setting to work, if it hadn't been such an indescribable delight to him to hold up the horse's tail, the spear, the decoy-bird, &c., and hammer on the table and cry, "Four groschen for the horse's tail, _once_! five kreuzer for the decoy, _twice_!--going! Half-a dollar for the fox-trap, once! two gulden for this fine foil, twice! two gulden--going--going--and gone!" He did what it is an auctioneer's duty to do, he praised the goods. He turned the horse's tail over and over, and opened it out before the huntsmen who were at the sale (the shooting-match had attracted many from a distance, as carrion does vultures), stroked it with and against the hair, and said there was enough of it to make snares for all the blackbirds in the Black Forest. He held up the decoy-bird in its best light, exhibiting to the company its wooden beak, its wings, talons, and feathers, and only wished there were a hawk present, that he might bait the decoy and lure it. The entries in his housekeeping account-book, which, on account of the wretchedness of my memory, I have had to refer to twice, show that the sum received from the huntsmen amounted to seven florins and some groschen. This does not include the medicine-chest nor the long-necked mask; for nobody would have anything to say to _them_. When he went home he poured the whole of this crown-treasure and sinking-fund into Lenette's gold satchel, taking occasion to warn her and himself of the dangers of great riches, and holding up to both the example of those who are arrogant by reason of wealth, and must therefore of necessity, sooner or later, come to ruin. In my Seventh Chapter, which I shall commence immediately, I shall at length be able, after all these thousands of domestic worries and miseries, to conduct the learned world of Germany to the shooting-ground and present to them my hero as a worthy member of the shooting-club, with a rifle and bullets, and properly and respectably--well, _booted_, more than _attired_ for his bullets are cast, his rifle cleaned, and his boots have put on their shoes, Fecht having stitched, on his knee, the three-quarter boots down to half-boots, and soled them with the--leather arm, of which enough has been said already. CHAPTER VII.