“Very well, very well, I’ll see to it all right, Frau Schnorps,” replied the old woman; and while Frau Sally Schnorps went to market, her mind quite at rest, she entered the house where the youngest of the Schnorpses, who had been left to guard the domestic hearth, handed over the dress-coat, which she thereupon took home to “make over.” And she did it. When she came back, after a day or two, the old dress-coat had become a new head-covering, which, to be sure, was rather heavily decorated with lace and various trimmings, but for this very reason exactly suited the taste of Madam Schnorps. It is true, her husband said, that now you could see that the dress-coat had really not been so bad, and that the money which went for the new one might have been put to some better use, but there was no use crying over spilt milk, the tyrannical intendant had decreed that it should be so, and he philosophically added-- “For every evil under the sun There is a remedy or there’s none. If there is one, try and find it, If there isn’t, never mind it.” When autumn came the wife of the musician walked forth proudly in her new hood, and about the same time her husband received an invitation to spend the evening at the house of an old general, who was a great lover of music, and famous for his bachelor’s suppers, which added a great attraction to his musical evenings. The old gentleman had a high opinion of Gottlieb Schnorps as a musician, and would have liked to ask him long ago, but he had never been able to bring himself to do so on account of Schnorps’s shabbiness, and the bass violinist was indebted for this invitation chiefly to his new coat. Schnorps was highly elated to receive it, and his mouth watered at the thought of all the culinary delights which would await him after the music. When the auspicious day came he devoted an unusual amount of care and attention to his toilet. Although it was only Thursday, he permitted himself the luxury of a clean shirt, bought himself--and this was the rarest of extravagances--a pair of white cotton gloves, even went so far as to brush his black trousers with a certain amount of energy, a thing he never did on ordinary occasions, so as not to wear out the cloth. “Get my dress-coat out, Sally,” he said in the evening, and she went upstairs in obedience to his behest. Now it was that something horrible occurred!