r to them, so, on second thoughts, I
wouldn't tell the date if I knew,--but I don't.

Such was the state of things, however, on the particular 24th of
December to which our story refers--only, if anything, rather more so.

The baron had got up in the morning in an exceedingly bad temper; and
those about him had felt its effects all through the day.

His two favorite wolf-hounds, Lutzow and Teufel, had received so many
kicks from the baron's heavy boots that they hardly knew at which end
their tails were; and even Klootz himself scarcely dared to approach his
master.

In the middle of the day two of the principal tenants came to say that
they were unprepared with their rent, and to beg for a little delay.
The poor fellows represented that their families were starving, and
entreated for mercy; but the baron was only too glad that he had at last
found so fair an excuse for venting his ill-humor.

He loaded the unhappy defaulters with every abusive epithet he could
devise (and being called names in German is no joke, I can tell you);
and, lastly, he swore by everything he could think of that, if their
rent was not paid on the morrow, themselves and their families should be
turned out of doors to sleep on the snow, which was then many inches
deep on the ground. They still continued to beg for mercy, till the
baron became so exasperated that he determined to put them out of the
castle himself. He pursued them for that purpose as far as the outer
door, when fresh fuel was added to his anger.

Carl, who, as I have hinted, still managed, notwithstanding the paternal
prohibition, to see Bertha occasionally, and had come to wish her a
merry Christmas, chanced at this identical moment to be saying good-bye
at the door, above which, in accordance with immemorial usage, a huge
bush of mistletoe was suspended. What they were doing under it at the
moment of the baron's appearance, I never knew exactly; but his wrath
was tremendous!

I regret to say that his language was unparliamentary in the extreme.
He swore until he was mauve in the face; and if he had not
providentially been seized with a fit of coughing, and sat down in the
coal-scuttle,--mistaking it for a three-legged stool,--it is impossible
to say to what lengths his feelings might have carried him.

Carl and Bertha picked him up, rather black behind, but otherwise not
much the worse for his accident.

In fact, the diversion of his thoughts seemed to have done him go