Moreover, he had an inborn detestation for dressy men although--just, the contrary feeling for dressy women--so that he would often sit and stare for a long time at the little Fugel-mannikins of dress in the fashion journals, just to get properly angry at them; and he would assure the Kuhschnappelers that there was nobody whom he should so delight in playing practical jokes upon as on such a mannikin--yea, in insulting him, or even doing him an injury (to the extent of a good cudgelling). Also it had always been a source of delight to him that Socrates and Cato walked barefoot about in the market-place; going _bareheaded_, on the other hand (_chapeau bas_), he did not like half so much. But, ere he could utter himself otherwise than by making faces, the wooden-head of a Venner stroked his sprouting beard, and in a distant manner graciously offered himself to the advocate in the capacity of cardinal protector or mediator in the Blaise inheritance business; this he did, of course, partly to blind the advocate's eyes, and partly to impress upon him how immeasurably inferior was his station. The latter, however, shuddering at the idea of taking a gnome of this kind for paraclete and household angel, said to him (but in Latin)-- "In the first place I must _insist_ that my wife shall not hear a syllable about that insignificant potato quarrel. And moreover, in any legal question I scorn and despise anybody's assistance but a legal friend's, and in this instance _I_ am my own legal friend. I fill an official position here in Kuhschnappel; it is true, the official position by no means fills _me_." The latter play upon words he expressed by means of a Latin one, which displayed such an unusual amount of linguistic ability, that I should almost like to quote it here. The Venner, however, who could neither construe the pun nor the rest of the speech with the ease with which we have read it here, answered at once (so as to escape without exposing his ignorance) in the same language, "Imo, immo," which he meant for yes. Firmian then went on, in German, saying, "Guardian and ward, intimate as their connection should be, in this case came into contact to an extent almost too great to be pleasant; although, no doubt, there _have_ been cases before where one cousin has cozened another:[24] however, the very members of ecclesiastical councils have come to fisticuffs before now, _e. g_. at Ephesus in the fifteenth century. Indeed, the Abbot Barsumas and Dioscurus, Bishop of Alexandria, men of position, pummelled the good Flavian on that very occasion till he was as dead as a herring.[25] And this was on a Sunday too, a day on which, in these absurd old times, a sacred truce was put to quarrels and differences of every description; though now, Sundays and feast-days are the very days when the peace is broken; the public-house bells and the tinkling of the glasses ring the truce _out_, and people pummel each other, so that the law gets _her_ finger into the pie.