“Bless me!” cried Mrs. Nuessler at last, “I quite forgot.  Braesig, you ought to have thought of it.  You must all want something to eat and drink!” She went to the blue cupboard, and brought out a splendid loaf of white household bread and some fresh butter, then she went out of the room and soon returned with sausages, ham and cheese, a couple of bottles of the strong beer that was brewed on purpose for old Mr. Nuessler, and a jug of milk for the children.  When everything was neatly arranged on a white table cloth, she placed a seat for her brother, and lifting her little niece, chair and all, put her beside her father.  Then she set to work and cut slices of bread, and poured out the beer, and saw that there was enough for everybody.

“I’ll be ready to give you something presently,” she said, stroking her little girls’ flaxen heads fondly, “but I must see to your little cousin first.  Here’s a chair for you, Braesig—­Come, Joseph.”  “All right,” said Joseph, blowing a last long cloud of smoke out of the left corner of his mouth, and then dragging his chair forward, half sitting on it all the time.  “Charles,” said Braesig, “I can recommend these sausages.  Your sister, Mrs. Nuessler, makes them most capitally, and I’ve often told my housekeeper that she ought to ask for the receipt, for you see the old woman mixes up all sorts of queer things that oughtn’t to go together at all; in short, the flavor is very extraordinary and not in the least what it ought to be, although each of the ingredients separately is excellent, and made of a pig properly fattened on peas.”  “Mother, give Braesig some more beer,” said Joseph.  “No more, thank you, Mrs. Nuessler.  May I ask for a little kuemmel instead?  Charles, since the time that I was learning farming at old Knirkstaedt with you, and that rascal Pomuchelskopp, I’ve always been accustomed to drink a tiny little glass of kuemmel at breakfast and supper, and it agrees with me very well, I am thankful to say.  But, Charles, whatever induced you to have any business transactions with such a rascal as Pomuchelskopp?  I told you long ago that he was not to be trusted, he’s a regular old Venetian, he’s a cunning dog, in short, he’s a—­Jesuit.”  “Ah, Braesig,” said Hawermann, “we won’t talk about it.  He might have treated me differently; but still it was my own fault, I oughtn’t to have agreed to his terms.  I’m thinking of something else now.  I wish I could get something to do!” “Of course, you must get a situation as soon as possible.  The Count, my master, is looking out for a steward for his principal estate, but don’t be angry with me for saying so Charles, I don’t think that it would do for you.  You see, you’d have to go to the Count every morning with laquered boots, and a cloth coat, and you’d have to speak High-German, for he considers our provincial way of talking very rude and uncultivated.  And then you’d have all the women bothering you, for they have a great say in all the arrangements.