On Christmas morn he looked at his Class-prodromus, and thought but little of it; he scarcely knew what to make of his last night's foolish inflation about his Quintusship. "The Quintus-post," said he to himself, "is not to be named in the same day with the Conrectorate; I wonder how I could parade so last night before my promotion; at present, I had more reason." To-day he eat, as on all Sundays and holidays, with the Master-Butcher Steinberger, his former Guardian. To this man Fixlein was, what common people are _always_, but polished, philosophical, and sentimental people very _seldom_ are,--_thankful_; a man thanks you the less for presents, the more inclined he is to give presents of his own; and the beneficent is rarely a grateful person. Meister Steinberger, in the character of storemaster, had introduced into the wire-cage of a garret, where Fixlein, while a Student at Leipzig, was suspended, many a well-filled trough with good canary-meat, of hung-beef, of household bread, and _Sauerkraut_. Money indeed was never to be wrung from him; it is well known that he often sent the best calf-skins gratis to the tanner, to be boots for our Quintus; but the tanning-charges the Ward himself had to bear.--On Fixlein's entrance, as was at all times customary, a smaller damask table-cloth was laid upon the large coarser one; the arm-chair, silver implements, and a wine-soup were handed him; mere waste, which, as the Guardian used to say, suited well enough for a Scholar; but for a Flescher not at all. Fixlein first took his victuals, and then signified that he was made Conrector. "Ward," said Steinberger, "if you are made that, it is well.--Seest thou, Eva, I cannot buy a tail of thy cows now; I must have smelt it beforehand." He was hereby informing his daughter that the cash set apart for the fatted cattle must now be applied to the Conrectorate; for he was in the habit of advancing all instalment-dues to his Ward, at an interest of four and a half per cent. Fifty gulden he had already lent the Quintus on his advancement to the Quintusship; of these the interest had to be duly paid; yet, on the day of payment, the Quintus always got some abatement; being wont every Sunday after dinner to instruct his guardian's daughter in arithmetic, writing, and geography. Steinberger with justice required of his own grown-up daughter that she should know all the towns where he in his wanderings as a journeyman had slain fat oxen; and if she slipped, or wrote crookedly, or subtracted wrong, he himself, as Academical Senate and Justiciary, was standing behind her chair, ready, so to speak, with the forge-hammer of his fist to beat out the dross from her brain, and at a few strokes hammer it into right ductility. The soft Quintus, for his part, had never struck her. On this account she had perhaps, with a few glances, appointed him executor and assignee of her heart. The old Flescher--simply because his wife was