students made that great supper for you, and escorted your carriage
both ways with a procession of torches?"

"Poor boys!" said the poet, laughing; "it was very kind, and they
could ill afford it. But they would have drunk quite as much wine for
any one who would have taken the inside out of the University clock,
or burnt the Principal's wig, as they did for me. It was a very
unsteady procession that brought me home, I assure you. The way they
poked the torches in each other's faces left one student, as I heard,
with no less than eight duels on his hands. And, oh! the manner in
which they howled my most pathetic love songs! No! no!"

The Duke laughed heartily.

"Is it any of the various occasions on which the fair ladies of
Germany have testified their admiration by offerings of sympathy and
handiwork?"

"No!" roared the poet.

"Are you quite sure?" said the Duke, slyly. "I have heard of
comforters, and slippers, and bouquets, and locks of hair, besides a
dozen of warm stockings knit by the fair hands of ----"

"Spare me!" groaned Friedrich, in mock indignation. "Am I a pet
preacher, that I should be smothered in female absurdities? I have
hair that would stuff a sofa, comforters that would protect a regiment
in Siberia, slippers, stockings ----. I shall sell them, I shall burn
them. I would send them back, but the ladies send nothing but their
Christian names, and to identify Luise, and Gretchen, and Catherine,