never failed to make it appear that the drolleries he was occupied in
bringing to a point, arose partly in spite, and partly in consequence
of the laudable efforts he was making for their prevention, and for
the preservation of the good order and dignity of Alma Mater. The
deep, the poignant, the overwhelming mortification, which upon each
such failure of his praise worthy endeavors, would suffuse every
lineament of his countenance, left not the slightest room for doubt
of his sincerity in the bosoms of even his most skeptical companions.
The adroitness, too, was no less worthy of observation by which he
contrived to shift the sense of the grotesque from the creator to the
created -- from his own person to the absurdities to which he had
given rise. In no instance before that of which I speak, have I known
the habitual mystific escape the natural consequence of his manoevres
-- an attachment of the ludicrous to his own character and person.
Continually enveloped in an atmosphere of whim, my friend appeared to
live only for the severities of society; and not even his own
household have for a moment associated other ideas than those of the
rigid and august with the memory of the Baron Ritzner von Jung. the
demon of the dolce far niente lay like an incubus upon the
university. Nothing, at least, was done beyond eating and drinking
and making merry. The apartments of the students were converted into
so many pot-houses, and there was no pot-house of them all more
famous or more frequented than that of the Baron. Our carousals here
were many, and boisterous, and long, and never unfruitful of events.

Upon one occasion we had protracted our sitting until nearly
daybreak, and an unusual quantity of wine had been drunk. The company
consisted of seven or eight individuals besides the Baron and myself.
Most of these were young men of wealth, of high connection, of great
family pride, and all alive with an exaggerated sense of honor. They