. . . . . .

It was an hour later; the scene and the personages the same, but the atmosphere marvellously altered.

“To ze ladies, Bonker!”

“To her, Baron!”

“To zem both!”

The genial heart, the magnanimous soul of Rudolph von Blitzenberg had asserted their dominion again.  Depression, jealousy, repentance, qualms, and all other shackles of the spirit whatsoever, had fled discomfited.  Now at last he saw his late exploits in their true heroic proportions, and realized his marvellous good fortune in satisfying his aspirations so gloriously.  Raising his glass once more, he cried—­

“Dear Bonker, my heart he does go out to you!  Ach, you have given me soch a treat.  Vunce more I schmell ze mountain dew—­I hear ze pipes—­I gaze into loffly eyes—­I am ze noblest part of mineself!  Bonker, I vill defy ze mozzer of my wife!  I drink to you, my friend, mit hip—­hip—­hip—­hooray!”

“You have more than repaid me,” replied the Count, “by the spectacle you have provided.  Dear Baron, it was a panorama calculated to convert a continent!”

“To vat should it convert him?” inquired the Baron with interest.

“To a creed even merrier than Socialism, more convivial than Total Abstinence, and more perfectly designed for human needs than Esperanto—­the gospel of ‘Cheer up.’ "

“Sheerup?” repeated the Baron, whose acquaintance with the English words used in commerce and war was singularly intimate, but who was occasionally at fault with terms of less portentous import.

“A name given to the bridge that crosses the Slough of Despond,” explained the Count.

The Baron still seemed puzzled.  “I am not any wiser,” said he.

“Never cease thanking Heaven for that!” cried Bunker fervently.  “The man who once dubs himself wise is the jest of gods and the plague of mortals.”

With this handsome tribute to the character and attainments of one of these heroes, and the Baronial roar that congratulated the other, our chronicle may fittingly leave them; since the mutual admiration of two such catholic critics is surely more significant than the colder approval of a mere historian.