He was not very courteous to others. When Baron Barnewitz had asked him if he would like to take a hand, he had replied: Oh yes! if you will play faro! and when Lisbeth von Meyen had wondered why he did not dance, he had said: Ah, at this moment I regret, for the first time in my life, that my dancing-master never succeeded in teaching me the difference between the first and the second position, nor my music-teacher to distinguish a waltz from an anthem. Thus he sauntered about among the card-tables, and excited Count Grieben's ire by looking into everybody's hands by turns, and then offering good, or rather bad advice to them all. Now again he was seen in the ball-room, looking at the dancing couples with the eyes of a good-natured tomcat who sees black and white mice play merrily on the barn-floor before him. In this pleasing occupation he was interrupted by Baron Barnewitz, who came hurrying in and said: "Oldenburg, as you have nothing to do----" "Why, my dear friend, I have a great deal to do." "Come with me in the dining-room and help me arrange the seats. Please come!" "Your confidence in my organizing capacity is highly honorable to me, _mon ami_," said Oldenburg, and followed his host across the hall, up the well-carpeted staircase, into the brilliantly illuminated dining-room, where the servants were just finishing setting the tables. "Here, Oldenburg, are the cards, all written; now tell me, shall we----" "Honored sir," said Oldenburg to a servant, "could you, perhaps, bring me the useful and ingenious instrument by which this bottle might be opened? There, thanks--_Festina lente!_ Barnewitz, that means: thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn! Your health, my boy! This young Cliquot is one of the more virtuous members of his numerous race. Really drinkable," and he sipped one glass after another. "Now, here I am at your service. Put the bottle on that side-table, my man in the gold lace! there are some glasses left--Countess Grieben--Baron Oldenburg--Baroness Nadelitz--are you mad, Barnewitz? I to sit two hours hemmed in between the two mummies! I had rather help to wait. No, we'll do it so. The whole of the old people go to one end of the table, and Young Germany to the other. You can go with your flock of he-goats and she-goats to the East, and I will go to the West with my kids and little sheep." "Well, I suppose that's the best," said Barnewitz. "Here are your cards." The servants had left the room; the two gentlemen, beginning at opposite ends, began to put the cards on the napkins. "Miss Klaus," said Oldenburg, holding up a card; "who, by all the Olympic gods, is Miss Klaus?" "Our governess. Have you not noticed her? A little thing, very pretty, and with eyes bursting with high treason. We could not well leave her in the nursery--Great heavens! Here is again husband and wife side by side!--because we wanted her in the cotillons. You can give her to Doctor Stein. Like and like, you know."