"With pleasure!" cried Mr. Timm, heartily grasping Oswald's proffered hand. "We will hold together honestly. Heaven knows this wretched old-fogy place does not have an abundance of men with whom one can hold together, or like to do it. But this league of two noble souls ought to be celebrated in a nobler beverage. Carole! A bottle of champagne--Clicquot and _frappé_--else, by the bones of my fathers, the lightning of my wrath falls upon your bald pate. And now come, _dottore mio_, tell us something of your wanderings; or, rather, tell us that some other time; and let me know, first of all, for that is most interesting to me, has Fame told us falsely in making a most wonderful mixture of great and small things of the last scenes of your farce, your drama, or your tragedy at Grenwitz?" "Before I can answer that," said Oswald, whom the oysters, the wine, Timm's company, and the whole atmosphere, were gradually putting into better humor, "I must know what it is Fame has reported." "Do you really wish to know?" "Certainly." "Well, there were two readings; but you must not blame me, Stein, if I touch a sore place in your heart without knowing." "But, Timm, do you think I am a child?" "In some respects all men are children, and remain children, dottore, and you are no exception to the rule. Whatever flatters our self-love, goes down as easily as a rich oyster; whatever hurts our vanity, tastes like wormwood and quinine. _Eh bien!_ Some say you had favored an understanding between Bruno--what a pity, by the way, the poor boy had to bite the grass so young!--and Miss Helen; that Felix had come to you to hold you to an account about this in the name of the parents; that this had led to a difficulty between you, which had ended in a scuffle; that Felix had slipped, in his endeavor to turn you out of the house, and that he had broken his right--some say his left--arm, once; some say twice." "The accursed rascal," murmured Oswald, between his teeth, hastily throwing an empty oyster-shell to the others. "Did I not tell you I might annoy you, Oswald? Come, don't be a child, and wash your anger down in a glass of this famous wine. The other reading is not half so bitter." "Let us hear!" "According to this variation it was not the pupil, but the teacher, whom the young lady looked upon with favor; and the broken arm of the baron was not the effect of a fall, but of a pistol ball, which was applied to his aforesaid extremity in the presence of witnesses, and according to all the rules of art." "Well, and which reading do you prefer?"