United States or Sudan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The leader of the ballet at the Kalbsbraten theatre in my time was Springbock, from Vienna. He had been a regular zephyr once, 'twas said, in his younger days; and though he is now fifteen stone weight, I can, helas! recommend him conscientiously as a master; and I determined to take some lessons from him in the art which I had neglected so foolishly in early life.
Without further ado then, after the occurrences of that evening, I determined on staying at Kalbsbraten, and presenting my card the next day to the Hof-Marshal, requesting to have the honor of being presented to his Highness the Prince, at one of whose court-balls my Dorothea appeared as I have described her. It was summer when I first arrived at Kalbsbraten.
Here it is the self-same flower, peering out at the Atlantic from Roundstone Bay; here, too, in this wild lonely place, nestles the fragrant memory of my Ottilia! What should I see in Blake's room but a rack of pipes, such as are to be found in almost all the bachelors' rooms in Germany, and amongst them was a porcelain pipe-head bearing the image of the Kalbsbraten pump!
My hair was curled and my moustache dyed to a nicety; and of the four hundred gentlemen present, if the girls of Kalbsbraten DID select one who wore an English hussar uniform, why should I disguise the fact? In spite of my silence, the news had somehow got abroad, as news will in such small towns, Herr von Fitz-Boodle was coming out in a waltz that evening.
And Greek it very possibly was, for my young friend, though as good across country as any man in his county, has not the fine feeling and tender perception of beauty which may be found elsewhere, dear madam. "Tell me about Speck, Blake, and Kalbsbraten, and Dorothea, and Klingenspohr her husband." "He with the cut across the nose, is it?" cries Blake. "I know him well, and his old wife."
The Fraulein Ottilia had not arrived at Kalbsbraten when the little affair between me and Dorothea was going on; or rather had only just come in for the conclusion of it, being presented for the first time that year at the ball where I where I met with my accident.
Otho Sigismund Freyherr von Schlippenschlopp, Knight Grand Cross of the Ducal Order of the Two-Necked Swan of Pumpernickel, of the Porc-et-Siflet of Kalbsbraten, Commander of the George and Blue-Boar of Dummerland, Excellency, and High Chancellor of the United Duchies, lived in the second floor of a house in the Schwapsgasse; where, with his private income and his revenues as Chancellor, amounting together to some 300L. per annum, he maintained such a state as very few other officers of the Grand-Ducal Crown could exhibit.
He is Knight Grand Cross of the Ancient Kartoffel Order, as, indeed, is almost every one else in his Highness's dominions. The town of Kalbsbraten contains a population of two thousand inhabitants, and a palace which would accommodate about six times that number.
I took one IT WAS BAD. The scent of it was enough, they were all bad. Ottilia had eaten nine bad oysters. I put down the horrid shell. Her eyes glistened more and more; she could not take them off the tray. "Dear Herr George," she said, "WILL YOU GIVE ME YOUR OYSTERS?" She had them all down before I could say Jack Robinson! I left Kalbsbraten that night, and have never been there since.
Then she got up and danced as brisk as a fairy; in which operation I of course did not follow her, but had the honor, at the close of the evening's amusement, once more to have her by my side in the sledge, as we swept in the moonlight over the snow. Kalbsbraten is a very hospitable place as far as tea-parties are concerned, but I never was in one where dinners were so scarce.
Word Of The Day