"I have no doubt it was," said Lothair, "but I can't comprehend how a thing of the kind could be kept up for any length of time. The best of jokes loses its point if it is kept going so long as it seems to have been in this 'Lodge of the Clucking Hen,' if I may so style it. You have both, Theodore and Ottmar, told us of clubs on a grand scale, with their rules, regulations, and mystifications. Let me direct your attention to what was probably the very _minutest_ club that ever, I should think, existed on this earth. In a certain little town on the Polish frontier, occupied, at the time, by Prussia, the only German officials were an old captain--retired on account of bad health--who was postmaster, and the exciseman. Every evening as the clock struck five, these two repaired to the only inn which there was in the place, to a little room where nobody else was admitted. Generally, the exciseman arrived there before the captain, who would find him smoking his pipe over his jug of beer. The captain, on coming in, would greet him with, 'Fine evening! Any news?' sit down opposite to him at the table; light his pipe--filled beforehand; take the paper out of his pocket, and hand each sheet, as he finished it, across to the exciseman, who would read it with equal care and avidity. They would go on puffing their clouds of smoke into each other's eyes in profound silence, till the clock struck eight, when the exciseman would get up, knock the ashes out of his pipe, and with a 'Not much news, to speak of,' be off to his bed. This they styled, in all seriousness, 'Our Club.' "Very good indeed," said Theodore, "and our Cyprian here would have been a splendid candidate for membership in that club. He never would have broken the sacred silence by any ill-timed remark. He seems to have taken a vow of silence, like the monks of La Trappe, for up to this moment not a syllable has passed his lips." Cyprian, who had indeed been completely silent up to this point, heaved a deep sigh, as if awaking from a dream; raised his eyes to the ceiling, and said, with a quiet smile: