It is not surprising that the young rascal was cordially detested throughout the whole household. Indeed, they had small cause to do anything else but detest him. There was no trouble he did not give the servants, and no trick which he did not play them. If he met the housemaids on the stairs or in the passages he invariably blew out their candles, or ran hastily against them, as if {069}by accident, so as if possible to make them drop any tray or jug they might be carrying. He rang the bell constantly for nothing, and pointed and laughed at the footman who came hurrying to answer it. He turned the lamp-oil into the soup just as the cook was about to send it up for the Baron’s dinner, put a quantity of vinegar into the beer which the butler had carefully drawn for the “hall” supper, and smeared the groom of the chamber’s chair in “the room” so thickly with bird-lime, that the respected individual in question had the greatest difficulty in ever getting out of it again. In short, he became the torment of the house, and everybody wished most devoutly that he had never been born. The only consolation was that, somehow or other, he selected Martha Scweinvolt as his principal victim. That woman’s life became a burden to her. Her thimble was constantly missing, and, when put on hastily, was more than once full of tar or glue, cunningly placed therein by the malicious urchin. “Booby-traps” were constantly set for her, in the shape of heavy books or jugs of water skilfully balanced on the top of the door of the Baroness’s room, which was then left just ajar, and the bell hastily rung, so that, coming down-stairs and entering the apartment in a hurry, she was sure to get the benefit of the jug or books upon her devoted head. These tricks, however, were by no means his worst. The supposed young Baron, in his visits to the housekeeper’s room, never missed the chance of paying attention to Martha’s comfort after his own peculiar fashion. He put salt in her beer when her head was turned; slyly inserted needles in her bread, which more than {070}once proved nearly fatal to the woman; and upon one occasion doctored her tea with some drugs which he had abstracted from his mother’s medicine-chest, and which produced serious and most unpleasant results. Not content with these practical jokes, the urchin never spared the feelings of anybody, and Martha was oftentimes almost goaded to madness by his insulting remarks upon her personal appearance, disposition, and situation in life. As time went on, matters seemed to get rather worse than better, and the wretched woman experienced to her cost that revenge, sweet as it may be, cannot be purchased without a heavy sacrifice.