"_Bonjour, mon vieux!_" cried the baron, with both cheeks full, when Schnetz entered. "My little highness is still resting from the fatigues of a musical entertainment given by a Russian lady here in the hotel. Come, light a cigar. No?--don't be afraid! On neutral ground smoking is allowed. That is the only thing which I, the best guarded of guardians, ever succeeded in carrying through against my ward's wishes. Positively I have regretted a hundred times that I didn't marry, and bring a few lively boys into the world. If they had tyrannized over me, I should know well enough for what sins I had to suffer. Now don't wink for me to speak lower. She is accustomed to hear these sighs of agony from me. She knows that her slave lets his hands and feet be put in chains, but not his tongue. To be sure," he continued, concluding this lamentation--which he had pronounced with far too jolly an air for it to excite serious sympathy--"to be sure, my dear Schnetz, my yoke was never so bearable as it is here in your blessed Munich: before all else, because you have lent your shoulder to the wheel, and I have a substitute in you such as I have wished for in vain at my own house, when my severe little niece has led the old lion-hunter about by her apron-string like a meek lamb." Then he related how he had made the most charming acquaintances at the club yesterday, and what a cordial tone he had found there. "You South Germans are really a fine race of men!" he cried, excitedly. "Everybody is so open, so true-hearted, in his _négligé_, just as God made him. You don't have to feel about a long time until you get through all the padding, and reach something like a human core; but whatever there is in you appears on the surface, and, if it doesn't please, it can't be helped. For that reason, of course, one sometimes comes across a slight roughness, which, however, only does you honor." Schnetz puckered his mouth to an ironical grimace.