"Of course, you must have a place again. My gracious Herr Count is looking out for a competent inspector for his principal estate; but, Karl, don't take it ill of me, that wouldn't suit you. Do you see, you must be rigged every morning with freshly blacked boots and a tight-fitting coat, and you must talk High-German to him, for he regards Platt-Deutsch as uncultivated, and then you have all the women about your neck, for they rule everything there. And if you could get along with the boots and the dress-coat, and the High-German,--for you used to know it well enough, though you may be a little out of practice now,--yet the women would be too much for you. The gracious Countess looks after you in the cow-stable and in the pig-pen. In short it is a service like--what shall I say? like Sodom and Gomorrah!" "Look here!" cried the mistress of the house, "it just occurs to me that the Pumpelhagen inspector is going to leave on St. John's day; that will be the place for you, Karl." "Frau Nüssler is always right," said Bräsig. "What the Herr Kammer_rath_ von Pumpelhagen is,"--for he laid the emphasis in the man's title always upon _rath_, so that it seemed as if he and the Kammerrath had served in the army together, or at least had eaten out of the same spoon and platter,--"what the Herr Kammerrath von Pumpelhagen is, nobody knows better than I. A man who thinks much of his people, and gives a good salary, and is quite a gentleman of the old school. He knew you too, in old times, Karl. That is the right place for you, and to-morrow I will go over there with you. What do yow say to it, young Jochen?" "Yes," said Herr Nüssler, "it is all as true as leather." "Bless me!" cried the young wife, and an anxious look overspread her handsome face, "how I forget everything to-day! If grandfather and grandmother knew that we were sitting down to supper with company, and they not called, they would never forgive me. Sit a little closer together, children. Jochen, you might have thought of it." "Yes, what shall I do about it now?" said Jochen, as she was already out of the room.