“Registrator!  Are you crazy?” cried the angry Conrector.  “Herr Studiosus, Herr Studiosus!  What is this you are about again?”

“Ah!” said the student, “you too are nothing but a bird, a screech-owl, that frizzles toupees, Herr Conrector!” “What!—­I a bird?—­screech-owl, a frizzler?” cried the Conrector, full of indignation; “Sir, you are mad, born mad!”

“But the crone will get a clutch of him,” cried Registrator Heerbrand.

“Yes, the crone is potent,” interrupted the student Anselmus, “though she is but of mean descent; for her father was nothing but a ragged wing-feather, and her mother a dirty parsnip; but the most of her power she owes to all sorts of baneful creatures, poisonous vermin which she keeps about her.”

“That is a horrid calumny,” cried Veronica, with eyes all glowing in anger; “old Liese is a wise woman; and the black Cat is no baneful creature, but a polished young gentleman of elegant manners, and her cousin german.”

“Can he eat Salamanders without singeing his whiskers, and dying like a candle-snuff?” cried Registrator Heerbrand.

“No! no!” shouted the student Anselmus, “that he never can in this world; and the green Snake loves me, for I have a childlike mien, and I have looked into Serpentina’s eyes.”

“The Cat will scratch them out,” cried Veronica.

“Salamander, Salamander masters them all, all!” hallooed Conrector Paulmann, in the highest fury.  “But am I in a madhouse?  Am I mad myself?  What crazy stuff am I chattering?  Yes, I am mad too! mad too!” And with this, Conrector Paulmann started up, tore the peruke from his head and dashed it against the ceiling of the room, till the battered locks whizzed, and, tangled into utter disorder, rained down the powder far and wide.  Then the student Anselmus and Registrator Heerbrand seized the punch-bowl and the glasses, and, hallooing and huzzaing, pitched them against the ceiling also, and the sherds fell jingling and tingling about their ears.

“Vivat the Salamander!—­Pereat, pereat the crone!—­Break the metal mirror!—­Dig the cat’s eyes out!—­Bird, little Bird, from the air—­Eheu—­Eheu—­Evoe—­Evoe, Salamander!” So shrieked and shouted and bellowed the three, like utter maniacs.  With loud weeping, Fraenzchen ran out; but Veronica lay whimpering for pain and sorrow on the sofa.

At this moment the door opened; all was instantly still; and a little man, in a small gray cloak, came stepping in.  His countenance had a singular air of gravity; and especially the round hooked nose, on which was a huge pair of spectacles, distinguished itself from all the noses ever seen.  He wore a strange peruke too—­more like a feather-cap than a wig.

“Ey, many good evenings!” grated and cackled the little comical mannikin.  “Is the student Herr Anselmus among you, gentlemen?—­Best compliments from Archivarius Lindhorst; he has waited today in vain for Herr Anselmus; but tomorrow he begs most respectfully to request that Herr Anselmus would not forget the hour.”