Max and Fritz came presently downstairs, their caps on one side, their
spurs jingling, their pipes splendid with coats of arms and full-blown
tassels, and they hung up the key of No. 90 on the board and called for
the ration of butterbrod and beer. The pair sat down by the Major and
fell into a conversation of which he could not help hearing somewhat.
It was mainly about "Fuchs" and "Philister," and duels and
drinking-bouts at the neighbouring University of Schoppenhausen, from
which renowned seat of learning they had just come in the Eilwagen,
with Becky, as it appeared, by their side, and in order to be present
at the bridal fetes at Pumpernickel.
"The title Englanderinn seems to be en bays de gonnoisance," said Max,
who knew the French language, to Fritz, his comrade. "After the fat
grandfather went away, there came a pretty little compatriot. I heard
them chattering and whimpering together in the little woman's chamber."
"We must take the tickets for her concert," Fritz said. "Hast thou any
money, Max?"
"Bah," said the other, "the concert is a concert in nubibus. Hans said
that she advertised one at Leipzig, and the Burschen took many tickets.
But she went off without singing. She said in the coach yesterday that
her pianist had fallen ill at Dresden. She cannot sing, it is my
belief: her voice is as cracked as thine, O thou beer-soaking Renowner!"
"It is cracked; I hear her trying out of her window a schrecklich.
English ballad, called 'De Rose upon de Balgony.'"
"Saufen and singen go not together," observed Fritz with the red nose,
who evidently preferred the former amusement. "No, thou shalt take
none of her tickets. She won money at the trente and quarante last
night. I saw her: she made a little English boy play for her. We will
spend thy money there or at the theatre, or we will treat her to French
wine or Cognac in the Aurelius Garden, but the tickets we will not buy.
What sayest thou? Yet, another mug of beer?" and one and another
successively having buried their blond whiskers in the mawkish draught,
curled them and swaggered off into the fair.
The Major, who had seen the key of No. 90 put up on its hook and had
heard the conversation of the two young University bloods, was not at a
loss to understand that their talk related to Becky. "The little devil
is at her old tricks," he thought, and he smiled as he recalled old
days, when he had witnessed the desperate flirtation with Jos and the
ludicrous end of that adventure. He and George had often laughed over
it subsequently, and until a few weeks after George's marriage, when he
also was caught in the little Circe's toils, and had an understanding
with her which his comrade certainly suspected, but preferred to
ignore. William was too much hurt or ashamed to ask to fathom that
disgraceful mystery, although once, and evidently with remorse on his
mind, George had alluded to it. It was on the morning of Waterloo, as
the young men stood together in front of their line, surveying the
black masses of Frenchmen who crowned the opposite heights, and as the
rain was coming down, "I have been mixing in a foolish intrigue with a
woman," George said. "I am glad we were marched away. If I drop, I
hope Emmy will never know of that business. I wish to God it had never
been begun!" And William was pleased to think, and had more than once
soothed poor George's widow with the narrative, that Osborne, after
quitting his wife, and after the action of Quatre Bras, on the first
day, spoke gravely and affectionately to his comrade of his father and
his wife. On these facts, too, William had insisted very strongly in
his conversations with the elder Osborne, and had thus been the means
of reconciling the old gentleman to his son's memory, just at the close
of the elder man's life.