The banquet seemed to be drawing to a close, and conversation had become loud and general, when we were suddenly called to order and told that Funk was about to address us. I ought to mention, in passing, that Funk belonged to the next district, and was therefore not one of our voters. He ascended the platform. He generally seemed loth to ascend the tribune; but when there, his fluent discourse and ready wit enabled him to control the most obstinate audience. He began, as usual, by saying that it hardly became him to speak on this occasion. He was not a voter, and if he were to express the praise and the thanks due me, to whom he owed his present position, it might appear as if he were endeavoring to make his private feelings the sentiment of the audience. He repeatedly referred to me as the "estimable noble patriarch," and inveighed in fierce terms against those who would, by a vote of want of confidence, express their disapproval of the actions of their representative, who had followed his honest convictions instead of the opinions of this or that constituent. He then indulged in an explanation of his reasons for having voted with the opposition. He possessed the art of repeating the speeches of others as if they were his own. He repeatedly used the expression "a free church in a free state," and several times used the word "republic," when he would immediately correct himself in an ironical manner, and to the great delight of many of his auditors. Funk's words filled me with indignation. When I beheld him standing up before this audience and expressing such sentiments, I felt as if it were a punishment that I had richly deserved; for in his case I had assisted a man in whom I had not full confidence, to a position of honor and importance. I was so occupied with thoughts of the speaker that I hardly noticed what he was saying, until I was aroused by hearing him defend me against the charge of being a Prussian. "And even if he were a Prussian, we should not forget that the Prussians are Germans as well as the rest of us. We are far ahead of them, and for that very reason it is our duty to help them." And then he began to praise me again, and told them what a noble action it was that a man who had a pastor for one son-in-law, and one of the first nobles in the land for another, whose son was to-day a professor, and might to-morrow be a minister, to receive into his house a girl who had come to him naked and destitute. Uproarious laughter followed these words, and Funk exclaimed: "O you rogues! you know well enough that when I said 'naked and destitute,' I only meant _poor and without family connections_." He described me and my wife as the noblest of beings, and repeatedly referred to Martella.