"Now, Frau Pastorin, am I not as good as that greyhound? And surely our years are more suited to each other!" And with that Bräsig looked up as innocently, as if he had thought of the best excuse in the world. The Frau Pastorin looked keenly in his honest face, and folded her hands thoughtfully on her lap, and said, "Bräsig, I will trust you. But, Bräsig, dear Bräsig, manage it as quietly as you can. And now come, sit down, and drink a cup of coffee." And she grasped one of his stiff arms, and turned him round to the table, as a miller turns about a windmill to the wind. "Good!" said Bräsig, taking the cup, which he held out with his stiff arm as if he were a sleight-of-hand performer, and the cup a hundred-pound weight, and he was holding it before an appreciative public in the open air; he tried to seat himself also; but as he bent his knees something cracked, and he sprang up,--whether it was the Pastor's chair, or the Pastor's trousers, he did not know; but he drank his coffee standing, and said, "It was just as well; he could not wait long, for he must go to Rexow, to Frau Nüssler." All the Frau Pastorin's entreaties that he would wait till his own clothes were dried were of no avail; Frau Nüssler's least wish was for him a command, registered in the memorandum book of his conscience, and so he sailed off,--the long, black flaps of the priestly garment flying behind him in the summer morning,--toward Pumpelhagen and Rexow, slowly and heavily, like the crows we used to catch, when I was a boy, and then let fly again. He came to Pumpelhagen, and there he was accosted by Habermann, who saw him over the garden fence. "Good heavens, Zachary, how you look!" "The result of circumstances, Karl! You know I fell into the mud, last night,--but I haven't time, I must go to your sister." "Bräsig, my sister's business can afford to wait better than mine, I have noticed for some time, there has been a great deal going on behind my back, which I was to know nothing of. That wasn't so much; but, since last night, I am sure that the Herr Pastor and the Frau Pastorin know all about the matter, and if they are keeping anything from me, I know it can be merely out of kindness." "You are right, Karl; it is out of kindness," interrupted Bräsig. "I am sure of it, Bräsig, and I am not disposed to be suspicious, but for some time it has lain heavy on my heart that this is a matter which concerns me very nearly. What did you have to do with the business last evening?" "I, Karl? I only had a rendezvous with the Frau Pastorin, in the water-ditch." "What did the Herr Pastor have to do with it?" "Karl, we did not know anything about it, he surprised us." "What had the Herr von Rambow to do with it?" "He caught your greyhound by the collar, because I had tumbled into the ditch." "_What had Fritz Triddelsitz to do with the business?_" asked Habermann with terrible emphasis. "And what had Louise's hat and shawl to do with it?"