The others caught fire, and stood up with their mugs high in the air, shouting: 

“Lebe wohl, Carl!  Lebe wohl!  Salamander, salamander, salamander!  Ein ist ein, zwei ist zwei, drei ist drei!  Lebe wohl!”

And so they toasted every man present, even Stephen himself, whom they complimented on his speech.  And he soon learned to cry Salamander, and to rub his mug on the table, German fashion.  He was not long in discovering that Richter was not merely a prime favorite with his companions, but likewise a person of some political importance in South St. Louis.  In the very midst of their merriment an elderly man whom Stephen recognized as one of the German leaders (he afterwards became a United States general) came and stood smiling by the table and joined in the singing.  But presently he carried Richter away with him.

“What a patriot he would have made, had our country been spared to us!” exclaimed Herr Konig.  “I think he was the best man with the Schlager that Jena ever saw.  Even Korner likes not to stand against him in mask and fencing hat, all padded.  Eh, Rudolph?”

Herr Korner gave a good-natured growl of assent.

“I have still a welt that he gave me a month since,” he said.  “He has left his mark on many an aristocrat.”

“And why did you always fight the aristocrats?” Stephen asked.

They all tried to tell him at once, but Tiefel prevailed.

“Because they were for making our country Austrian, my friend,” he cried.  “Because they were overbearing, and ground the poor.  Because the most of them were immoral like the French, and we knew that it must be by morality and pure living that our ‘Vaterland’ was to be rescued.  And so we formed our guilds in opposition to theirs.  We swore to live by the standards of the great Jahn, of whom you spoke.  We swore to strive for the freedom of Germany with manly courage.  And when we were not duelling with the nobles, we had Schlager-bouts among ourselves.”

“Broadswords?” exclaimed Stephen, in amazement.

“Ja wohl,” answered Korner, puffing heavily.  The slit in his nose was plain even in the moonlight.  “To keep our hands in, as you would say.  You Americans are a brave people—­without the Schlager.  But we fought that we might not become effete.”

It was then that Stephen ventured to ask a question that, had been long burning within him.

“See here, Mr. Korner,” said he, “how did Richter come by that scar?  He always gets red when I mention it.  He will never tell me.”

“Ah, I can well believe that,” answered Korner.  “I will recount that matter,—­if you do not tell Carl, lieber Freund.  He would not forgive me.  I was there in Berlin at the time.  It was a famous time.  Tiefel will bear me out.”

“Ja, ja!” said Tiefel, eagerly.