The rest of the poultry freely acknowledged this superiority: there was cackling and clucking, bowing and scraping, and no one more obsequious than Arthur's father, the steuerrath, who kept constantly at the side of the great man, saying, in his smooth voice, flatteries, which the other received as a matter of course--something to which he was well accustomed, especially from that quarter--with an indifference which to most others would have been insulting. It is quite possible that the steuerrath did not find this behavior on the part of his rich brother-in-law altogether pleasant, but he was too much a man of the world to give any outward sign of his inward emotions. But his spouse was not quite so successful in her self-command, who, as born Baroness Kippenreiter, had an unquestionable claim to respectful attention, and a right to be dissatisfied if this were withheld. So she sought to indemnify herself for the humiliation by the extremest possible condescension of manner towards the other ladies, Mrs. Burgomaster Koch, Mrs. Justizrath Heckepfennig, Mrs. Bauinspector Strombach, and the rest of the feminine _élite_ of our little town, though even this satisfaction could not roll away the clouds from her aristocratic brow. I had hardly begun to feel at ease in the company, which happened quickly enough, when my natural vivacity, which bordered on rudeness, returned and impelled me to a hundred pranks, which were decidedly not in the best taste, though certainly not instigated by any intention to offend, and which I carried on all the more recklessly, as I perceived I had all the laughers on my side. I could blush with shame even now, when I think of my shallow attempts at wit, and how poor in invention and clumsy in execution were the comic imitations to which I must needs treat my respectable audience, because forsooth I had a sort of celebrity in the town for this sort of thing, (my masterpiece, I remember, was a lover bent on regaling his mistress with a serenade, and incessantly disturbed by barking dogs, mewing cats, scolding neighbors, and malicious passers-by, and finally taken up by the watch,) what foolish flippancy and want of tact in the speeches that I made at the table, and with how many glasses of wine I repaid myself for all my ridiculous exertions.