"
"Bravo!" said all the real bric-a-brac in one breath, and the two
Italian rapiers left off fighting to cry, "Begone!" For there is
not a bit of true bric-a-brac in all Europe that does not know the
names of the mighty masters.
August felt quite pleased to have won so much applause, and grew
as red as the lady's shoes with bashful contentment.
"I knew all the Hirschvogels, from old Veit downwards," said a fat
gres de Flandre beer jug; "I myself was made at Nurnberg." And he
bowed to the great stove very politely, taking off his own silver
hat--I mean lid--with a courtly sweep that he could scarcely have
learned from burgomasters. The stove, however, was silent, and a
sickening suspicion (for what is such heartbreak as a suspicion of
what we love?) came through the mind of August: WAS HIRSCHVOGEL
ONLY IMITATION?
"No, no, no, no!" he said to himself stoutly; though Hirschvogel
never stirred, never spoke, yet would he keep all faith in it!
After all their happy years together, after all the nights of
warmth and joy he owed it, should he doubt his own friend and
hero, whose gilt lion's feet he had kissed in his babyhood? "No,
no, no, no!" he said again, with so much emphasis that the Lady of
Meissen looked sharply again at him.
"No," she said, with pretty disdain; "no, believe me, they may
'pretend' forever.
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