"Dear brother-in-law," said the rector, "I come yet."

"But too late," said Kurz, taking up his cards, with a deep sigh, as if the rector had treated him unworthily, but he would bear it like a christian.

"Karl," said Brasig, "how much have we in all?

"Four tricks," said Habermann.

"Come," said Kurz, "that is not fair, no telling!"

"Is it telling," said Brasig, "when I merely ask a question? Now pay attention, Karl, I shall take one more, and if you take one, then we are out."

"I shall get mine," said Kurz.

"And I shall get mine, too," said the rector.

After a couple of rounds, Kurz laid his hand over his tricks: "So, I have mine." Diamonds were on the table, the rector ventured a cut with the queen, Brasig followed with the king, and the poor rector had lost his trick: "How that could happen, I cannot comprehend!"

"It wasn't a whist game!" cried Kurz.

"Karl," said Brasig, "if you had been careful, they would have lost another trick."

"You must blame yourself for that, you didn't play after me in hearts."

"Karl, did I have any? I had nothing but the queen."

"No, brother-in-law," cried Kurz, meantime, "you threw away the game, you had the king of clubs, and you played the nine. It lost the game."

"What would you have?" said Brasig, with great contempt. "Are you a dunce? Here I sit with a handful of spades, and a couple of queens besides; what would you have?"

"Herr, do you think, when I have said Boston, I am afraid of your trumpery queens?"

"Come, come!" cried Habermann, dealing the cards, "let it go, this old after-play is disagreeable."

In this fashion, they played on, and it seemed as if they would tear each other's hair, and yet they had the best feelings towards each other. The rector won, and he had the best prospect of winning, for he who loses the first game, as is well known, always wins afterward. Kurz sat disconsolate at his bad luck; but that also often finds compensation. "Ten grandissimo!" said he. All were surprised, even he himself, and he looked his cards through once more. "Ten grandissimo!"

said he again, laid the cards on the table, and walked up and down the room: "They play like that in Venice, and other great watering places."

In the midst of his greatest triumph, and the greatest distress of the others, Fritz Triddelsitz came to the door, looking quite disturbed and pale: "Herr Inspector, Herr Habermann, oh, do come out here!"

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Habermann, "what has happened?" and was springing up, but Kurz held him back.

"No," said he, "the game must be played first. It happened so to me, once before, at the time of the great fire, I had just put a grand on the table, and they all ran away."

"Herr Inspector," begged Fritz, "you must come."

"What is it?" cried Habermann, dropping his cards, and jumping up. "Is anything on fire?"

"No," stammered Fritz, "I--me--something has happened to me."

"What has happened to you?" said Brasig, across the table.

"My chestnut mare has a colt," said Fritz, in an anxious tone.

"Well, that has often happened," said Brasig, "but you make a face like a funeral; it is rather a joyful occasion, under the circ.u.mstances."

"Yes," said Fritz, "but--but--it is so queer. You must come with me, Herr Inspector."

"Why, is the colt dead?" asked Habermann.

"No," said Fritz, "it is well enough; but it looks so queer. Krischan Dasel says he should think it was a young camel."

"Well," said Habermann, "we can finish the game afterwards, we will go out with you."

And in spite of Kurz's remonstrances, they all went with Fritz to the stable.

"I never saw such a colt," said Fritz, on the way, "it has ears as long as that," measuring from the wrist to the elbow.

When they came to the stable, there stood Krischan Dasel by the enclosure, where the mare was looking fondly at her little one, and whinnying over it, and the little one was making its first attempts at springing about; he shook his head, and said to Brasig, who came and stood by him, "Now tell me, Herr Inspector, did you ever see the like of that?"

"Yes," said Brasig, looking at Habermann, and said with emphasis, "I will tell you, Karl, what sort of an animal it is. Fullblood's colt is a mule."

"That is it," said Habermann.

"A mule?" cried Fritz, and he sprung over into the enclosure, and succeeded, in spite of the whinnying of the old mare, in grasping the colt by the neck, and examined his face and eyes and ears, and as the fearful truth flashed upon him he exclaimed, in fierce anger, "Oh, I could wring the creature's neck, and Gust Prebberow's, into the bargain!"

"For shame, Triddelsitz," said Habermann, seriously, "just see how pleased the mother is, even if it isn't a thorough-bred."

"Yes," cried Brasig, "and she is the nearest to it, as the Frau Pastorin says. But you may wring Gust Prebberow's neck, for all I care, for he is an out-and-out, double-distilled rascal."

"How is it possible!" said Fritz, as he slowly stepped out of the enclosure, and his wrath had given place to a great melancholy; "he is my best friend, and now he has cheated me with a deaf horse and a mule.

I will sue him."

"I told you before, there was no friendship nor honesty in horse-dealing," said Brasig, taking Fritz under the arm, and drawing him out of the stable, "but I am sorry for you, in your just retribution. You have bought your experience in horse-dealing, and that is what every one must do, but let me warn you against a horse lawsuit, for long after the mule is dead such a lawsuit will be far from ended.

You see," he went on, leading Fritz up and down the court, "I will tell you a story, for an example. You see, there was old Rutebusch, of Swensin, he sold a horse to his own brother-in-law, who was inspector here before Habermann's time, an infamous creature of a dapple-gray, as a saddle-horse. Good, or, as you are in the habit of saying, 'Bong!'

Three days after, the inspector wishes to try his new acquisition, so he climbs on to the creature, which was very high; but scarcely was he seated, when the old schinder ran off to the village pond--no stopping him!--and there he stood, up to the neck in water, and would move neither back nor forward.

"It was fortunate, both for the dapple-gray and the inspector, else they might both have been drowned; the inspector roared mightily for help, for he couldn't get down there, and he couldn't swim, and old Flegel the wheelwright had to come to his rescue in a boat. Well, then the lawsuit began, for the inspector said the horse was a stupid, what we farmers call a studirten (scholar), and Rutebusch must take him back, for stupidity protects from everything, in horse-dealing as in other matters. Rutebusch wouldn't do it, and the two brothers-in-law first had a falling out, and then quarrelled so bitterly, that they wouldn't go within three miles of each other.

"The lawsuit went on, all the time. All Swensin was called up to testify that the creature was in its right mind when they knew it, and the Pumpelhagen people had to swear that it appeared to them like a studirten. So the lawsuit went on, into its fifth year, and the creature stood quietly in its stable, eating oats, for the inspector never got on it again, since he considered it such a dangerous animal; he dared not kill it, either; for it was the _corpus delicti_ of the whole concern, as they call it. They brought the most learned horse-doctors to see it, but it did no good, for they were not agreed, three said it was clever, and three said it was stupid. The lawsuit was going on, slowly, all the time, and a whole brood of new lawsuits was hatched out of it, for the learned horse-doctors charged each other with maliciousness and ill-breeding, and sued each other for libel.

Then they wrote to a celebrated horse-professor, in Berlin, to see what he thought of the business. He wrote back that they must cut off the old schinder's head, and send it to him, till he could examine the brains; it was hard enough to tell whether a reasonable being was clever or stupid, but it was harder, with an unreasonable beast, because the poor creature had nothing to say for himself.

"Well, that might have been done, but old Rutebusch and his lawyer opposed it, and carried their point, and the suit went on again. Then old Rutebusch died, and six months afterwards, his brother-in-law died also, and they never were reconciled, even on their death-beds, and went into eternity, each obstinate in his own opinion, the one that the old schinder was clever, the other that he was stupid. The lawsuit was suspended, for the time, and soon died out of itself, for the old gray kicked the bucket, three weeks later, out of pure idleness and over-feeding. Then they salted his head nicely, and sent it to the professor, at Berlin, and he wrote back, clearly and distinctly, that the old horse had, all his life, been as little of a studirten as himself, and he only wished that every one of the lawyers had as much intelligence as the beast, so very reasonable had his brains appeared.

And the man was right; for I afterwards had the infamous rascal of a boy, who brought out the horse for the inspector, for a servant, and he confessed to me that he had tied a piece of burning tinder under the poor creature's tail, out of pure deviltry, because the inspector had given him a beating the day before. And I ask any reasonable being, how intelligent must not that poor beast have been, to run into the village pond, to extinguish the fire! And so the great lawsuit came to an end; but the little lawsuits, between the learned horse-doctors, are still going on. And now, let me tell you something: Habermann is a good friend of old Prebberow, the rascal's father, and he shall speak to him, and get justice done you. And now you may go, and don't cherish any hatred against the innocent little beast, or against the mother, for they couldn't help it, and the mother is a poor, deceived creature, as well as you."

With that, he followed the others, who had returned to the card-table.

"Come, come!" said Kurz, "so; ten grandissimo! I play myself."

"Karl," aid Brasig, "you must talk with old Prebberow, and not let your confounded greyhound get into difficulties."