aster Wacht addressed by some one with a shrill, squeaking voice.
The man who thus interrupted his meditations was no less a personage
than Herr Pickard Leberfink, a decorator and gilder by trade, and one
of the drollest men in the world.

Leberfink's exterior struck everybody's eye as something eccentric and
extraordinary. He was of small size, thick and stumpy, with a body too
long, and with short bowed legs; his face was not at all ugly, but
good-natured, with round red little cheeks and small grey eyes that
were by no means wanting in vivacity. Pursuant to an old obsolete
French fashion, he was elaborately curled and powdered every day;
but it was on Sundays that his costume was especially striking. For
then he wore, to take one example, a striped silk coat of a lilac and
canary-yellow colour with immense silver-plated buttons, a waistcoat
embroidered in gay tints, satin hose of a brilliant green, white and
light-blue silk stockings, delicately striped, and shining black
polished shoes, upon which glittered large buckles set with precious
stones. If to this we add that his gait was the elegant gait of a
dancing master, that he had a certain cat-like suppleness of body, and
that his little legs had a strange knack of knocking the heels together
on fitting occasions,--for instance, when leaping across a gutter,--it
could not fail but that the little decorator got himself singled out
everywhere as an extraordinary creature. With other aspects of his
character my kindly reader will make an acquaintance presently.

Master Wacht was not altogether displeased at having his painful
meditations interrupted in this way. Herr, or better Monsieur Pickard
Leberfink, decorator and gilder, was a great fop, but at the same
time the most honest and faithful soul in the world; he was a very
liberal-minded man, was generous to the poor, and always ready to serve
his friends. He only practised his calling now and again, merely out of
love for it, since he had no need of business. He was rich; his father
had left him some landed property, having a magnificent rock-cellar,
which was only separated from Master Wacht's premises by a large
garden. Master Wacht was fond of the droll little Leberfink on account
of his downright genuineness, and also because he was a member of the
small Protestant community which was permitted to exercise the rites of
its faith in Bamberg. With conspicuous alacrity and willingness
Leberfink accepted Wacht's i