It grew darker at each step. Tommy resigning himself to his fate trotted behind his master obediently. "Well," said Von Prell, after they had recovered from their laugh, "why should I try to throw dust in your eyes? I am a poor pickerel floundering here on dry land. Have you the faintest notion of what it means to keep company with three plebeians and lead a useful vegetable existence, and from morning till evening steadfastly practise dutifulness and uprightness? It's more than a fellow can stomach. I tell you, it's enough to drive him to a dose of castor oil. Tommy self-denyingly helps me tide over the worst moments, but every now and then he, too, is a disappointment to me. Will my lady permit me to use this occasion for asking her an extremely important question?" Pleased at his having grown serious, Lilly assented. "Can you--can you wag your ears?" She succumbed to another paroxysm of laughter as to a spell of sickness, leaning against a tree and panting for breath, while he continued with profound affliction in his voice: "I am master of the modest art and have been proud to exercise my skill ever since I was at high school, where it was considered the acme of human accomplishments. I made up my mind to train Tommy to do the same trick, and I spent many an hour over him in difficult intellectual effort, but without result. One day, however, I discovered he could wag his ears much better than I can, and, I assume, always had been able to. Only he did it when he wanted to, not when I wanted him to. Isn't that distressing? Doesn't it reflect the general aimlessness of human endeavour? O dearest baronissima, I am afraid I shall soon become a great philosopher out of sheer boredom." Lilly could now see only the outline of his figure, behind which the dog's eyes glowed like two beacon lights. Since her school days she had not abandoned herself so completely to a spirit of pure fun, and she had to wait until a pause came in her laughing before she could tell him it was high time to be returning. He obediently turned on his heels, transferring Tommy's chain from one hand to the other. The catastrophe that menaced him seemed to have passed from his mind. Lilly, therefore, since time pressed and something had to be done for him, took the bit between her teeth, and reported what Miss von Schwertfeger intended to do, and what she demanded from him as the price of her silence. Lilly was helping him, but not with that beautiful, dignified air of superiority with which she had wanted to hold out her rescuing hand. She felt she was like a playmate of his, and every few moments a half-suppressed giggle interrupted her speech.