The fairest piece of news was, that Fräulein Thiennette had sent word to-day, "he might visit Her Ladyship to-morrow, as My Lord, his godfather, was to be absent in town." This, however, I must explain. Old Aufhammer was called _Egidius_, and was Fixlein's godfather; but he--though the Rittmeisterinn duly covered the cradle of the child with nightly offerings, with flesh-tithes and grain-tithes--had frugally made him no christening present, except that of his name, which proved to be the very balefullest. For, our _Egidius_ Fixlein, with his Shock, which, by reason of the French convulsions, had, in company with other emigrants, run off from Nantes, was but lately returned from college--when he and his dog, as ill-luck would have it, went to walk in the Hukelum wood. Now, as the Quintus was ever and anon crying out to his attendant: "Coosh, Schil" (_Couche Gilles_), it must apparently have been the Devil that had just then planted the Lord of Aufhammer among the trees and bushes in such a way, that this whole travestying and docking of his name--for Gilles means Egidius--must fall directly into his ear. Fixlein could neither speak French, nor any offence to mortal; he knew not head or tail of what _couche_ signified; a word, which, in Paris, even the plebeian dogs are now in the habit of saying to their _valets de chiens_. But there were three things which Von Aufhammer never recalled,--his error, his anger, and his word. The provokee, therefore, determined that the plebeian provoker and honor-stealer should never more speak to him, or--get a doit from him.