and Sparta will be but as
nunneries. (Rises and flings his sword upon the table.)

SPIEGEL. (jumping up). Bravo! Bravissimo! you are coming to the right
key now. I have something for your ear, Moor, which has long been on my
mind, and you are the very man for it--drink, brother, drink! What if
we turned Jews and brought the kingdom of Jerusalem again on the tapis?
But tell me is it not a clever scheme? We send forth a manifesto to the
four quarters of the world, and summon to Palestine all that do not eat
Swineflesh. Then I prove by incontestable documents that Herod the
Tetrarch was my direct ancestor, and so forth. There will be a victory,
my fine fellow, when they return and are restored to their lands, and
are able to rebuild Jerusalem. Then make a clean sweep of the Turks out
of Asia while the iron is hot, hew cedars in Lebanon, build ships, and
then the whole nation shall chaffer with old clothes and old lace
throughout the world. Meanwhile--

CHARLES VON M. (smiles and takes him by the hand). Comrade! There must
be an end now of our fooleries.

SPIEGEL. (with surprise). Fie! you are not going to play the prodigal
son!--a fellow like you who with his sword has scratched more
hieroglyhics on other men's faces than three quill-drivers could
inscribe in their daybooks in a leap-year! Shall I tell you the story
of the great dog funeral? Ha! I must just bring back your own picture
to your mind; that will kindle fire in your veins, if nothing else has
power to inspire you. Do you remember how the heads of the college
caused your dog's leg to be shot off, and you, by way of revenge,
proclaimed a fast through the whole town? They fumed and fretted at
your edict. But you, without losing time, ordered all the meat to be
bought up in Leipsic, so that in the course of eight hours there was not
a bone left to pick all over the place, and even fish began to rise in
price. The magistrates and the town council vowed vengeance. But we
students turned out lustily, seventeen hundred of us, with you at our
head, and butchers and tailors and haberdashers at our backs, besides
publicans, barbers, and rabble of all sorts, swearing that the town
should be sacked if a single hair of a student's head was injured. And
so the affair went off like the shooting at Hornberg,* and they were
obliged to be off with their tails between their legs.

*[The "shooting at Hornberg" is a proverbial expression in Germany
for any expedition from