This made uproar enough to raise the dead, why, then, should not Frau Nüssler hear it in the kitchen? and, just as she opened the door, Bräsig was shoving up his hat with one hand, and pointing with the other, still holding the stick, to the broken window, while he uttered the remarkable words, "You can thank nobody but yourself, young Jochen! For what does the dumb creature of a crown-prince understand? All the beautiful Kümmel!" "Good heavens!" cried Frau Nüssler, coming in. "What is all this, Jochen? Bless me, Bräsig, how you look!" "Mother," said young Jochen, "the dog and Bräsig--what can I do about it?" "For shame, young Jochen," cried Bräsig, going up and down the room with great strides, his long coat-tails almost dipping in the Kümmel, "who is master of this house, you, or young Bauschan?" "But, Bräsig, why in the world are you dressed so horribly?" asked Frau Nüssler. "So?" said Bräsig, looking at her with great eyes, "suppose you had gone to a rendezvous with the Frau Pastorin, last night, and tumbled into the ditch, so that your clothes were all damp and muddy, this morning? And suppose you got a letter, that you must come here to Rexow, to a family council? And what was I to do? Is it my fault that the Herr Pastor is tall as Lenerenz's child, and as thin as a shadow, and that his head is so much bigger than mine? Why did the Frau Pastorin rig me out in his uniform this morning, so that all the old peasants going to church called out to me, from a distance, 'Good morning, Herr Pastor!' but that I might come here, out of pure kindness, to your family council?" "Bräsig," said young Jochen, "I swear to you----" "Don't swear, young Jochen! You will swear yourself into hell. Do you call this a family council, with all the Kümmel running about the room, and I in the Pastor's clothes, to be made a laughing-stock of?" "Bräsig, Bräsig," exclaimed Frau Nüssler, who scarcely knew her old friend in his anger, and who had been picking up the broken fragments and setting the table-cloth straight, "don't mind such a trifle! Sit down, it is all right again, now." Under Frau Nüssler's friendly words, Bräsig quieted down, and allowed himself to be seated at the breakfast-table, only growling to himself, "The devil knows, young Jochen, I have always lived in the hope that you would grow a little wiser with years, but, I see well, what is dyed in the wool will never wash out. Meanwhile though--what is the matter here?" "Yes," said Frau Nüssler--"Yes," said Jochen also, and his wife was silent, for she thought Jochen was really going to say something; he said nothing, however, but "It is all as true as leather." So Frau Nüssler began again: "Yes, there is Rector Baldrian's Gottlieb, Jochen's sister's son, a right good fellow, and well-educated, and has studied his Articles as a Candidate--you have seen him here a great many times."