My face must have looked very stupid, or it must have expressed great amazement at his intimate tone and his familiarity with my affairs; because he laughed and said: "Yes, Herr Kreisphysikus, in a little town you get to know people, and all about them." "But I don't know _you_," I interrupted, my patience at last exhausted. "I am Jonas Goldstuecker." "So your card tells me. But I should like to permit myself the question, to what I owe the honor of your visit." "O, you'll soon find out, Herr Kreisphysikus. I am not sick, as you see. Quite another reason brings me to you. But if I should need medical advice, I shall not fail to come to you, although Sanitaetsrat Ehrlich has been treating me for six years--since the time his daughter Annie married Herr Rechtsanwalt Bobrecker of Leobschuetz. An excellent match. Any day Bobrecker might have gotten sixty thousand marks, and Loewenberg, the wool manufacturer in Oppeln, would have given him as much as seventy-five thousand, but he wanted to marry a girl from an educated family, and no other. Well, the daughter of Sanitaetsrat Ehrlich is no vain delusion." My breath was completely taken away by this information regarding private matters. Next came the abrupt question: "In general, Herr Kreisphysikus, are you in favor of wet or dry treatment in rheumatism?" A patient after all! I breathed more freely. Herr Jonas Goldstuecker had given me a creepy sensation. "I don't understand what you mean by that." "I mean, are you in favor of massage and electricity or in favor of baths?" The impudent assurance of the question utterly astounded me, and I wanted to give him a brusque reply, when he continued: "Sanitaetsrat Ehrlich is an excellent physician; but he's a bit antiquated already, Herr Kreisphysikus. The young doctors of to-day make a much more lymphatic impression." Doubtless, he meant "emphatic," because a few moments later another pretentious word was incorrectly applied. "But Sanitaetsrat Ehrlich after all has the largest practice in the congregation; and people would look on it as bigamy if anyone were to say anything against him." I was only slightly acquainted with my colleague, and I did not know that doubt of his powers would be regarded as blasphemy--probably what Jonas Goldstuecker meant to say. The humor of the situation at last began to dawn upon me, and I awaited the further utterances of my remarkable guest in amused curiosity. "And his house, Herr Kreisphysikus, his house! Really, very fine. The Frau Sanitaetstraetin knows how to do the honors and to keep her distance." What he meant by this was not exactly clear to me; but I learned that the youngest daughter of my colleague Ehrlich was a ravishing maiden, as Herr Jonas Goldstuecker assured me. "Very highly educated, speaks every language, plays the piano as well as Leubuscher (I didn't know of the performer), and only Chopin, Rubinstein, Offenbach, Brahm." "Brahms, Herr Goldstuecker, Brahms."