"Vinum the father, And c[oe]na the mother, And Venus the nurse, Produce the Podagra." "The seed is beautiful!" cried Kurz, "you will find no better between Grimmen and Greifswald." "Ho, ho, Kurz," said Habermann, "not go fast! I have a word to say----" "Listen to me!" said Bräsig, across to the rector. "Don't come near me with your French! I don't understand it. What did you say about Fenus? What have I, and my cursed Podagra, to do with Fenus?" "My honored friend and benefactor," said the rector, with unction, "Venus was, in antiquity, the goddess of love." "It is all one to me," said Bräsig, "she might be something very different, for all I care,--now-a-days, every stupid sheep-dog is called Fenus." "No, Habermann," cried Kurz, again, "if the clover seed has the right lustre, and looks so violet-blue, then----" "Well, Kurz," said Habermann, "yours didn't look like that." "My benefactor," said the rector again, to Bräsig. "Venus was, as I have said, a goddess, and as a sheep-dog----" "Eh, what?" said Bräsig, "you must have imagined all that, about the goddess, Fenus means a sort of bird. Karl, don't you remember the stories we read, when we were children, about the bird Fenus?" "Ah!" said the rector, as light dawned upon his mind, "you mean the bird Ph[oe]nix, which builds itself, in Arabia, a nest of costly spices----" "That is an impossibility!" exclaimed Kurz. "How can the most skillful bird build a nest out of cloves, pepper-corns, cardamoms and nutmegs?" "Dear brother-in-law, it is only a fable." "Then the fable is a falsehood," said Bräsig, "but I don't think you pronounce the word rightly; it isn't Ph[oe]nix, it is Ponix, and they are not birds, they are little horses, and they don't come from Arabia, but from Sweden, and Oland, and I know them very well, for my gracious lady the countess had two Ponixes, which she used to drive for pleasure." The rector wanted to set him right, but Kurz interrupted: "No, brother-in-law, let it go! We all know that you are better informed than Bräsig, in such learned matters." "No," said Bräsig, "let him come on!" standing before the rector, as if he had no objections to a contest. "No, no!" exclaimed Kurz. "We didn't come out here, to quarrel about Venuses and clover-seed; we came merely to have a pleasant game of Boston." "We can have that," said Habermann, beginning to clear the table. "Hold, Karl," said Bräsig, "I don't like to see you doing that, that is the house-steward's business." And with that he roared across the court, "Triddelsitz!" and Fritz came running in. "Triddelsitz, we are going to play Boston, get the table ready, and a sheet of paper to set down the winnings, and fill the pipes, and make a handful of matches."