Mr. Hummel conferred confidentially with a policeman. Mr. Hahn became excited and angry when he was ordered to appear in court, but Hummel had in some measure the best of it, for the police advised Mr. Hahn to avoid annoyance to the neighbours and passers-by by the removal of the hive. Mr. Hahn had taken great pleasure in his bees; their hive had been fitted with all the new improvements, and they were not like our irritable German bees; they were an Italian sort, which only sting when provoked to the utmost. But this was all of no avail, for even the Doctor and his mother herself begged that the hives might be removed; so, one dark night they were carried away, with bitter and depressed feelings, into the country. In the place which they had occupied he erected some starlings' nests on poles. They were a poor comfort. The starlings had, according to old customs, sent messengers of their race through the country and hired their summer dwellings, and only the sparrows took exulting possession of the abode, and like disorderly householders, left long blades of grass hanging from their nests. Mr. Hummel shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and in a loud bass voice, called the new invention the sparrow telegraph. The garden amusements had begun; the sad prognostication had become a reality; suspicion and gloomy looks once more divided the neighboring houses. _CHAPTER XVIII_. CLOUDLETS. A Professor's wife has much to bear with her husband. When Ilse found herself seated with her friends, the wives of Professors Raschke, Struvelius, and Guenther, over a cozy cup of coffee, which was by no means slighted, all manner of things came to light.