"You don't say so! Soho! hum! A pretty piece of work. I'll hear all about it presently, or the glue will get cold. I'm afraid, you see, Alouise, that this glue is not strong enough; which is the reason why the woodwork will not stick. Soho!--poor Tyrolese!" "Poor Bavarians, you mean! Why, the Tyrolese won the day!" "Oh, did they so really? Well, now,--humph!--poor fellows!" "And we had one of them to sleep here, last night." "Really, really! By the bye, are you anything of a mechanician?" "Not in the least." "Then it's no use asking you the thing I want to know. Hum!--poor Innsbruckers--poor Tyrolese, I mean." "But, Martin, we Innsbruckers _are_ Tyrolese." "To be sure, to be sure--who doesn't know that? This tiresome glue! That was just what I was saying." "That? What?" "Well--now you puzzle me--I think this will stick, at last." "Well, I see you don't take any interest in the matter, so I won't waste your time. Perhaps the Bavarians will have recovered possession of the town before bedtime." "Perhaps so, perhaps so--nothing more likely." She ran down stairs, laughing. "Just the old story," said she to Leopold; "every man thinking his own affairs of more importance than those of all the world besides. How now, Dolf?" to the boy, who ran in glowing and panting. "There's fine work, mistress. They're barricading the gates with casks and wagons, and closing all the houses. May I go back?" "No, no, you must not leave me." "I'll bring you word every ten minutes how things are going on.--It's so jolly!" "Well, Dolf, if you will promise me very faithfully indeed to do that, you may go; and I'll give you a cake at supper-time besides. But mind you keep an eye, if you can, on my father." Away scampered the boy; and Leopold prepared to go too. "Don't you go," said Alouise. "I shall be afraid." "Oh, very well," said he, stretching himself and yawning. She gave him an old newspaper, which he began to pore over; but on returning to the kitchen after a short absence, she found him gone. "That's just the way," said she to herself, pouting; "much he cares for my safety, in spite of the pretty things he said to me last night. I suppose Nannette will be off next, if I do not go to look after her." Nannette was stretching her head out of one of the upper windows, so intent on catching all she could of the distant uproar, that she was not aware of her mistress's presence till Alouise gave a smart pluck at her dress. However, Alouise had no sooner set her to scour the bedrooms than she herself went up to the very top of the house, which had, like many of the dwellings in the Tyrol, a sort of open story or penthouse raised over the flat roof, from whence she could descry a little, but not much, of the stir near the gates.