I am much afraid I have made a considerable slip, inasmuch as I have drawn up no tables relative to the constitution, &c., of this imperial borough of Kuhschnappel (which is properly a small imperial town, though it was once a large one) to lay before the learned and statistical world. However, I can't possibly pull up here in the full gallop of my chapter, but must wait till we all get to the end of it, when I can more conveniently open my statistical warehouse. The wheel of fortune soon began to rattle, and throw up mud; for when Leibgeber took his eighth part of a placard of Siebenkæs's marriage to the house of his guardian, the Heimlicher von Blaise, a tall, meagre, barge-pole of a woman, wrapped up in wimples of calico, the Heimlicher's wife, received it indeed, and with warmth, but warmth of the sort with which we generally administer a cudgelling; moreover, she uttered the following words (calculated to give rise to reflection)-- "My husband is the Heimlicher of this town, and what is more, he's away from home. He has nothing to do with seven cheeses;[13] he is tutor and guardian to persons belonging to the highest and noblest families. You had better be off as fast as you like; you've got hold of the wrong man here." "I quite think we have, myself," said Leibgeber. Siebenkæs, the ward, here tried to pacify his letter or paper carrier with the woman a little, by suggesting that, like every good dog, she was but barking at the strangers before fetching and carrying for them: and when his friend, more anxious than himself, said, "You're quite sure, are you not, that you took proper legal precautions against any venomous 'objections' which the guardian might make to paying up your money, on account of your changing your name?" he assured him, that before he had established himself as Siebenkæs, he had procured his guardian's opinion and approval in writing, which he would show him when they got home. But when they did get home, Von Blaise's letter was nowhere to be found--it wasn't in any of the boxes, nor in any of the college note-books, nor even among the wastepaper--in fact, there was nothing of the kind. "But what a donkey I am to bother about it!" cried Siebenkæs, "what do I require it for, at all?" Here Leibgeber, who had been glancing at the Saturday newspapers, suddenly shoved them into his pocket, and said in a somewhat unwonted tone of voice, "Come out, old boy, and let's have a run in the fields." When they got there, he put into his hands the 'Schaffhausen News,' the 'Swabian Mercury,' the 'Stuttgart Times,' and the 'Erlangen Gazette,' and said, "These will enable you to form some idea of the sort of scoundrel you have for a guardian." In each of these newspapers, the following notification appeared:--