He started back himself, affrighted at a certain idea,--for he feared he should, when he had once had it, even execute it; hence he said to it three times, No. The idea was this,--to persuade the Prince to visit Clotilda's parents. But it was of no use; he remembered that his father had held too strict a court of cognizance over the Chamberlain and the Minister. "And yet, what harm can Le Baut do to me? If I should only draw three sun-glances from January upon the poor fool! The wisest thing for me is, not to think any more about it to-day." The dog will bring us the answer; I, for my part, make a bet--a fine connoisseur of human nature on my island bets the contrary--that he does not carry out this joke. 18. DOG-POST-DAY. Clotilda's Promotion.--Incognito-Journey.--Petition of the Majors of the Chase.--Consistorial Messenger.--Caricature of the Flachsenfingeners. To be sure he did--carry out the joke; but still at bottom I do not lose my bet. For it happened in this way. From the day when Doctor Culpepper had made that pass with his coarse hand, as with an electrical discharger, before the full-blooded nose of Zeusel, the man with three watches pressed his company upon my hero, who carried only one, and that, too, the clumsy one of the Bee-father. Zeusel always thanked God, if only a court-courier got drunk at his house, or the court-dentist over-ate himself. He always brought with him, when he came, certain secret items of intelligence, which were to be published. He kept nothing to himself, not though one had threatened to hang him in the cellar of his shop. He told our hero that the Minister was making interest in behalf of his Joachime for the place of second maid-of-honor to the Princess, who could select only the female part of her service for herself,--but that he could not fairly do it, because he, or his son Matthieu, had promised the Chamberlain Le Baut to procure the same place for Clotilda; he therefore begged my hero, who, as he saw, he said, was Matthieu's friend, to spare him the embarrassment, and induce the Prince (which would cost only _one_ word) himself to intercede with the Princess in behalf of Joachime; the Princess, who, besides, patronized the Minister, would, on more than one ground, do it with pleasure, and then the Minister could not help it, if the Chamberlain, the enemy of his Lordship, went away empty. The simpleton, as one can see, had guessed out, merely from the two accounts, which he had got hold of, of the two office-seekers, the whole of the remaining case; and the very circumstance, which Matthieu disclosed to him, that the Minister was vacating a quarter of a wing of his palace, for a companion of his deceased daughter Giulia, had only strengthened his conviction. To such a degree does malice supply the place, not only of years, but also of information and insight!