"That opinion," said Cyprian, "comes from the very depths of your quiet, friendly spirit, my dearest Sylvester: but you are forgetting that, besides the (generally utterly empty and insipid) _bon mots_, the 'Society wit' of the French is, in a great degree, founded on a mutual contempt of, and jeering and scoffing at, each other (such as at the present time we call 'chaff,' although it is less good-humoured than that), which soon passes the bounds of what we consider courtesy and consideration, and consequently would speedily deprive our intercourse of all pleasure. Then the French have not the very slightest comprehension of that wit whose basis is real humour, and it is almost incomprehensible how often the point of some not very profound, but superficially funny, little story escapes them." "Don't forget," said Ottmar, "that the point of a story is very often completely untranslatable." "Or is badly translated," said Vincenz. "It so happens that I just think of a very amusing thing which happened quite recently, and which I will tell you, if you care to hear it." "Tell us, tell us! delightful fabulist! valued anecdotist!" cried the friends. "A young man," related Vincenz, "whom nature had endowed with a splendid bass voice, and who had gone upon the operatic stage, was making his first appearance as Sarastro, in the 'Magic Flute.' As he was mounting the car, in which he first comes on, he was seized with such a terrible attack of stage-fright that he trembled and shook--nay, when the car got into motion to come forward, he shrunk into himself, and all the manager's efforts to induce him to reassure himself, and, at all events, stand upright, were useless. Just then it happened that one of the wheels got entangled in the long mantle which Sarastro wears, so that the further he got on to the stage, the more this mantle dragged him backwards; whilst he, struggling against this, and keeping his feet firm, appeared in the centre of the stage with the nether portion of his body projecting forwards, and his head and shoulders held tremendously far back. The audience were immensely pleased at this most regal attitude and appearance of the inexperienced neophyte, and the manager offered him, and concluded with him, an engagement on very liberal terms. Now, this simple little story was being told, lately, in a company where there was a French lady who did not understand a word of German. When everybody laughed, at the end of the story, she wanted to know what the laughter was about, and our worthy D. (who, when he speaks French, gives a most admirable, and very close, imitation of the tones and actions of French people, but is continually at a loss for the words) undertook to translate the story to her. When he came to the wheel which had got entangled with Sarastro's cloak, constraining him to his regal attitude, he called it 'Le rat,' instead of 'La roue.' The French lady's brow clouded, her eyebrows drew together, and in her face