The young people did not conduct themselves badly. Mining did like Lining in putting her hands before her face, only she did not cry, and she would have run away like Lining, if she had not, from a little child, stood on the most confidential footing with her Uncle Bräsig. She threw herself, with her eyes covered, against her Uncle Bräsig's breast, and crept with her little, round head almost into his waistcoat pocket, and cried,--
"Uncle Bräsig! Uncle Bräsig! you are an abominable old fellow!"
"So?" asked Bräsig. "Eh, that is very fine."
"Yes," said Rudolph, with a little air of superiority, "you should be ashamed to play the listener here."
"Monsieur Noodle," said Bräsig, "let me tell you, once for all, I have never in my life done anything to be ashamed of, and if you think you can teach me good manners you are very much mistaken."
Rudolph had sense enough to see this, and, although he would have relished a little contest, it was clear to him that on this occasion he must yield to Mining's wishes. So he remarked, in a pleasanter tone, that if Bräsig were up in the tree by chance--he would take that for granted--he might at least have advised them of his presence, by coughing, or in some way, instead of listening to their affairs from A to Z.
"So?" said Bräsig, "I should have coughed, should I? I _groaned_ often enough and if you had not been so occupied with your own affairs, you might easily have heard me. But you ought to be ashamed, to be making love to Mining without Frau Nüssler's permission."
That was his own affair, Rudolph said, and nobody's else, and Bräsig knew nothing about such matters.
"So?" asked Bräsig, again. "Did you ever have three sweethearts at once? I did, sir; three acknowledged sweethearts, and do I know about such matters? But you are such a sly old rascal, fishing my tench out of the Black Pool, on the sly; and fishing my little Mining, before my very eyes, out of the arbor. Come, leave him alone, Mining! he shall have nothing to do with you."
"Ah, Uncle Bräsig," begged Mining so artlessly, "be good to us, we love each other so much."
"Well, never mind Mining, you are my little goddaughter; though that is all over now."
"No, Herr Inspector!" cried Rudolph,--laying his hand on the old man's shoulder, "no, dear, good Uncle Bräsig, that is not over, that shall last as long as we live. I will be a farmer, and if I have the prospect of calling Mining my wife, and"--he was cunning enough to add--"and you will give me your valuable advice, the devil must be in it, if I cannot make a good one."
