It was a sultry summer evening, when Kalzow, with his wife and the Kreisgerichtsrath, sat on the Fuchs-spitze. The sun was inclining to its rest, and cast glowing lights into the waves. Yet it was still so hot that the Regierungsrath laid his straw hat beside him upon the bench, and continually made movements betokening such craving for freedom, as though he would jump out of his cravat, and occasionally even out of his skin. "To-day there were eighty degrees of heat in the shade," said the Kreisgerichtsrath, as he wiped away the drops of perspiration. "Thirty degrees, I say thirty degrees," retorted Kalzow, irritatedly. "Eight-and-twenty degrees Réaumur," said the Kreisgerichtsrath, with quiet decision. "Réaumur! Of course, Réaumur. What have we to do with Fahrenheit or Celsius?" "The astronomists measure by Celsius." "I am no star-gazer, and decline any such inuendoes," said Kalzow, while coughing annoyedly. "Unfortunately, people have enough to do to watch their own feet, so that they may not stumble upon earth." Miranda sighed, while her knitting needles began to move nervously. The Kreisgerichtsrath shrugged his shoulders, and drew figures in the sand; he knew well that for his friend he played the part that in sham-fights the appointed enemy does, against whom all man[oe]uvres are directed. Yet he was not prepared for so vigorous an onslaught as that with which the Regierungsrath surprised him. "Indeed, it is impossible to bear with you any longer," continued the latter. "You contradict one constantly; do you then, think that it makes intercourse pleasant in such heat? I have put a seal upon politics--I do not allude to that tender theme any more; can one give greater proofs of peaceable intentions? I am contented with everything, with general assemblies, even, for anything that I care, with the French revolution; I allow it all to be discharged over me like torrents of rain, and do not even put up an umbrella before it; but you seek quarrels, you do! Can there be anything more harmless than the lines in a thermometer to which the mercurial column extends its tongue; no, even for that the alarm-drum must be beaten. Quarrelling, everlasting quarrelling, here where one ought to recruit oneself; I can bear it no longer!" A violent fit of coughing closed this bayonet charge upon his patient friend. The Kreisgerichtsrath rose with great calmness and said-- "I can give no better proofs of my peaceable intentions than by retiring," and he disappeared upon the footpath that led to the valley.