y break into the wildest
leaps, danced the boldest figures that took away the master's sight and
speech; and if he attempted to set him right again, the young man would
draw off his dancing-shoes, and throw them at the master's head, and
then get down on the floor and run about on all fours. Summoned by the
noise, the old gentleman would then rush out of his room, attired in a
loose red dressing-gown, with a gold-paper capon his head, and lay the
hunting whip on the back of the young man without mercy. The nephew
would thereupon scream frightfully, spring upon tables and bureaus, and
cry out in an odd foreign tongue. The old man in the red dressing-gown
would at length catch him by the leg, drag him down from a table, beat
him black and blue, and choked him by twisting his cravat, whereupon he
would become clever and decent again, and the dancing-exercise would
continue without further interruption.

But when the Frenchman had advanced his pupil so far that music could
be used during the lesson, there was a magical change in the nephew's
behavior. A town musician was called in, and given a seat on the table
in the _salon_ of the desolate house. The dancing-master would then
represent a lady, the old gentleman furnishing him with a silk dress
and an Indian shawl; and the nephew would request the lady to dance
with him. The young Englishman was a tireless dancer, and would not let
the Frenchman escape out of his long arms, but forced him to dance, in
spite of his groans and cries, till he fell down from fatigue, or until
the fiddler's arm became too lame to keep up the music.

The dancing-master was nearly brought to his grave by these lessons,
but the thaler that he received regularly every day, and the good wine
that the old man set out for him, caused him to keep on, even though he
firmly resolved each day not to enter the desolate house again.

But the inhabitants of Gruenwiesel took an altogether different view of
the matter. They found that the young man must have sociable qualities;
while the young ladies rejoiced that, in the great scarcity of young
men, they should have so nimble a dancer for the forthcoming winter.

One morning the maids, on returning from market, reported to their
mistresses a wonderful occurrence. Before the desolate house, a
splendid coach, with beautiful horses, was drawn up, with a footman in
rich livery holding open the door. Thereupon the door of the desolate
house was opened, and two