to his lady's guests, to the bride, to the, bridegroom, to everybody.
He was now ready to improvize, and dashed thumb and finger on the zither,
tossing up his face, swarthy-flushed: "There was a steinbock with a
beard." Half-a-dozen voices repeated it, as to proclaim the theme.

Alas! a beard indeed, for there is no end to this animal. I know him;"
said the duchess dolefully.

"There was a steinbock with a beard;
Of no gun was he afeard
Piff-paff left of him: piff-paff right of him
Piff-paff everywhere, where you get a sight of him."

The steinbock led through the whole course of a mountaineer's emotions
and experiences, with piff-paff continually left of him and right of him
and nothing hitting him. The mountaineer is perplexed; an able man, a
dead shot, who must undo the puzzle or lose faith in his skill, is a
tremendous pursuer, and the mountaineer follows the steinbock ever. A
'sennderin' at a 'sennhutchen' tells him that she admitted the steinbock
last night, and her curled hair frizzled under the steinbock's eyes. The
case is only too clear: my goodness! the steinbock is the----. "Der Teu
. . . !" said Andreas, with a comic stop of horror, the rhyme falling
cleverly to "ai." Henceforth the mountaineer becomes transformed into a
champion of humanity, hunting the wicked bearded steinbock in all
corners; especially through the cabinet of those dark men who decree the
taxes detested in Tyrol.

The song had as yet but fairly commenced, when a break in the 'piff-paff'
chorus warned Andreas that he was losing influence, women and men were
handing on a paper and bending their heads over it; their responses