第17章 CHAPTER I. THE ALBUM--THE MEDITERRANEAN HEATH.(2)

"The HWHAT?" cries Blake. "What the divvle, Fitz, are you growling about? Bendemeer Lake's in Westmoreland, as I preshume; and as for roses and nightingales, I give ye my word it's Greek ye're talking to me." And Greek it very possibly was, for my young friend, though as good across country as any man in his county, has not the fine feeling and tender perception of beauty which may be found elsewhere, dear madam.

"Tell me about Speck, Blake, and Kalbsbraten, and Dorothea, and Klingenspohr her husband."

"He with the cut across the nose, is it?" cries Blake. "I know him well, and his old wife."

"His old what, sir!" cries Fitz-Boodle, jumping up from his seat.

"Klingenspohr's wife old!--is he married again?--Is Dorothea, then, d-d-dead?"

"Dead!--no more dead than you are, only I take her to be five-and-thirty. And when a woman has had nine children, you know, she looks none the younger; and I can tell ye that when she trod on my corruns at a ball at the Grand Juke's, I felt something heavier than a feather on my foot."

"Madame de Klingenspohr, then," replied I, hesitating somewhat, "has grown rather--rather st-st-out?" I could hardly get out the OUT, and trembled I don't know why as I asked the question.

"Stout, begad!--she weighs fourteen stone, saddle and bridle.

That's right, down goes my pipe; flop! crash falls the tumbler into the fender! Break away, my boy, and remember, whoever breaks a glass here pays a dozen."

The fact was, that the announcement of Dorothea's changed condition caused no small disturbance within me, and I expressed it in the abrupt manner mentioned by young Blake.

Roused thus from my reverie, I questioned the young fellow about his residence at Kalbsbraten, which has been always since the war a favorite place for our young gentry, and heard with some satisfaction that Potzdorff was married to the Behrenstein, Haabart had left the dragoons, the Crown Prince had broken with the ---- but mum! of what interest are all these details to the reader, who has never been at friendly little Kalbsbraten?

Presently Lynch reaches me down one of the three books that formed his library (the "Racing Calendar" and a book of fishing-flies making up the remainder of the set). "And there's my album," says he. "You'll find plenty of hands in it that you'll recognize, as you are an old Pumpernickelaner." And so I did, in truth: it was a little book after the fashion of German albums, in which good simple little ledger every friend or acquaintance of the owner inscribes a poem or stanza from some favorite poet or philosopher with the transcriber's own name, as thus:--"To the true house-friend, and beloved Irelandish youth.

"'Sera nunquam est ad bonos mores via.'

WACKERBART, Professor at the Grand-Ducal Kalbsbraten-Pumpernickelisch Gymnasium."

Another writes,--"'Wander on roses and forget me not.'

AMALIA v. NACHTMUTZE, GEB. v. SHALAFROCK," with a flourish, and the picture mayhap of a rose. Let the reader imagine some hundreds of these interesting inscriptions, and he will have an idea of the book.

Turning over the leaves I came presently on DOROTHEA'S hand. There it was, the little neat, pretty handwriting, the dear old up-and-down strokes that I had not looked at for many a long year,--the Mediterranean heath, which grew on the sunniest banks of Fitz-Boodle's existence, and here found, dear, dear little sprig! in rude Galwagian bog-lands.

"Look at the other side of the page," says Lynch, rather sarcastically (for I don't care to confess that I kissed the name of "Dorothea v. Klingenspohr, born v. Speck" written under an extremely feeble passage of verse). "Look at the other side of the paper!"

I did, and what do you think I saw?

I saw the writing of five of the little Klingenspohrs, who have all sprung up since my time.

. . . . . .

"Ha! ha! haw!" screamed the impertinent young Irishman, and the story was all over Connemara and Joyce's Country in a day after.