"Is that finally you, papa? Well, you're late I must say!" the elfish phantom cried while coming towards us. "Yes, it's finally me," grunted my colleague, "and here..." He did not complete his sentence for the young lady interrupted him: "We've been waiting for you a long time, papa, and mother is very angry with you!" "Hm!" grunted my colleague and "hm!" was also what I said in the depths of my soul. "Come, Helene, let's go home," said Löhnefinke soothingly, but the moonlit elf retorted even more brusquely: "Thank you, papa, but I'll go with mother. She's coming now and will tell you herself how she's waited for you. Mother, here's father finally!" He was indeed here, the paterfamilias Löhnefinke, and at this moment in time he quoted no more German verse and no more foreign either. Mother stepped forward through the moonlight, quite quickly and energetically in fact. I would not have been averse to taking my leave before she reached us, but my colleague held my arm fast with the grip of a Prussian dragoon and whispered: "I want to introduce you. Where are you going? Colleague, allow me to present to you my wife!" What could I express other than the greatest desire to make the acquaintance of his wife? Walking between the first houses of the hamlet of Westerland this worthy lady had already caught up with us and taken the arm of her daughter. She overlooked me completely to begin with of course to dedicate herself wholeheartedly to family matters. "So you've finally turned up, Löhnefinke?! Your usual lack of consideration for others as is your wont! Let me tell you, Löhnefinke..." "My dear Johanna, look who's here! My friend and correspondent..." It doesn't happen very often that one is shoved as a folding screen between a cold draught and the armchair of a rheumatic! The introductions took place and I adapted myself with my inherent good nature to the role meted out to me. After a few polite exchanges the four of us pushed on together to the collection of modest, low, peaceful, Frisian huts and if there was still one last dark spot for me in the soul of my colleague, it vanished completely on this short trek. How the moon, that German moon, looked down and laughed at the two women and the Royal Prussian Circuit Judge! It knows how to take its revenge alright. It has its means, it knows the means at its disposal and it knows how to use them. My friend Löhnefinke is quite right--it's a terrible thing to have to inherit the legacy of generations, of centuries past without being permitted beforehand to make use of the privilege in law to limit the amounts owing to one's creditors. It's a crying shame first of all not to pay attention to that pallid, waxing and waning companion, then to despise it and finally to be given over to its influence without any great resistance on your part and to surrender oneself!