The judge earnestly protested against this assertion, and insisted that although there were undoubtedly deplorable indications, still the wave was beginning to rise again.
The physician, who still clung to the old ideal of his student days--an ideal always mingled with a profound hatred of Metternich--came bravely to the judge's assistance, by declaring that the influence of the profligate times of Metternich is still felt; for our people persist in the belief that everything that our rulers propose to do is wrong and tyrannical; and applaud when the law is evaded, or a criminal slips through without punishment.
In conclusion the physician could not refrain from giving the lawyer, who, while he really had a contempt for the people, belonged to the so-called radical wing of the liberty party, to understand that his party was greatly to blame for the disorganization of the popular mind, by its carping depreciation of the great and good things which had actually been accomplished.
The clergyman agreed that the foundation of all the mischief lay in the weakening of religious belief; but the schoolmaster was bold enough to assert that in the boasted days of unshaken faith there was much more wickedness in the world than now.
The discussion was apparently about to be taken up with the subject of religion, which was strictly forbidden in the Casino. But the Protestant minister's timid, quiet wife, happily turned the conversation, by asking, during a slight pause:
"Are there not more offenders who are undetected than are ever brought to justice?"
No one seemed to care to answer this question, and the young lady blushed deeply at the silence that followed her words, but at length the schoolteacher took pity on her, and said, with a smile:
"It is quite impossible to give an exact answer to your question; but it is probably much as it is with the aërolites. Two-thirds of our planet is covered with water, consequently two-thirds of the aërolites fall into it unnoticed; and of the last third, which falls on dry land, not all are found."
This bright and skilfully devised figure led the company back into a more agreeable frame of mind.
The school-teacher, who liked to deal in generalities, continued: