"Very well," cried the Professor, joyfully, scanning his wife. But it was well that everything was as it should be without his help, for in matter of the toilet the critical eye of the Professor was of doubtful value. "Now I begin a new game," continued Ilse, "such as the children used to play at home. I am to knock at your friends' doors and call out, Halloa, halloa! and when the ladies ask. Who is there? I shall answer, as in the game: "I am a poor, poor beggar-maid, And what I want is this: For me I want a piece of bread; For my husband I want a kiss." "Well, so far as the kisses are concerned that I am to dispense to the wives of my colleagues," replied the Professor, putting on his gloves, "I should, on the whole, be obliged to you if you would take that business upon yourself." "Ah, you men are very strict," said Ilse; "my little Franz also always refuses to play the game, because he would not kiss the stupid girls. I only hope that I'll not disgrace you." They drove through the streets. On the way the Professor gave his wife an account of the persons and the particular branch of learning of each of his colleagues to whom he was taking her. "Let us visit pleasant people first," he said. "Yonder lives Professor Raschke, our professor of philosophy, and a dear friend of mine. I hope his wife will please you." "Is he very famous," asked Ilse, laying her hand on her beating heart. The carriage stopped before a low dwelling at the further end of the suburb. Gabriel hastened into the house to announce the visitors; finding the kitchen empty, he knocked at the parlor-door, and, finally, being experienced in the customs of the family, opened the entrance into the court yard. "Professor Raschke and his wife are in the garden." The visitors passed through a narrow yard into a kitchen-garden, which the owner of the house had given his lodger permission to walk in, to get the benefit of the air. The couple were walking along the path under the noon-sun of an autumn day. The lady carried a little child on her arm; the husband held a book in his hand, from which he was reading to his companion. In order, however, to do as much family duty as possible, the Professor had fastened the pole of a baby carriage to his belt and thus drew a second child after him. The backs of the couple were turned to the guests and they moved slowly forward, listening and reading aloud. "An encounter in the narrow path is not desirable," said Felix; "we must wait until they turn round the square and face us."