"Was it not a capital idea, papa?" asked the young fellow, laughing. "I have just heard that you have had an interview with the Freiherr. He probably wished to consult you about his gout?"
"Possibly; I diagnosed insanity," said Wehlau, dryly, "and ordered applications of ice. They will not help him much, however, since the disease is too deep-seated, but they will calm him, and that is something."
"How so? Did you quarrel?"
"We certainly did. I never advise humouring fixed ideas, as do some of the profession. My system is to rouse patients from their illusions, and when this Udo von Eberstein began to recite his old chronicles I quickly made clear to him my views with regard to his mediæval nonsense."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Hans; "you must have touched him on the raw. He never will forgive either you or me."
"What of that? What have either you or I to do with that old Ebersburg owl?"
"Very much, since I am betrothed to his daughter."
The Professor honoured his son with a long stare, then frowned, and said, crossly, "What! more nonsense? I should suppose we had had enough."
"I am perfectly serious, papa. I have just betrothed myself to Gerlinda von Eberstein. You have known her at the bedside of the Countess, and you cannot but rejoice in such a lovely creature for a daughter."
"Hans, are you utterly insane? The daughter of a notorious lunatic! Why, it may be hereditary in the family. The girl has something shy and strange in her air, and the father is as mad as a March hare."