When the rector had drunk three glasses of punch to the health of each set of lovers, and one to the health of the whole company, he was no longer to be restrained even by Kurz, but was determined to make a speech in spite of all opposition. He rose, picked up the tea-ladle, and the sugar-tongs which had been left on the table since coffee time, coughed twice to clear his throat, and then seeing that he had attracted every one's attention, and that Joseph watched each movement he made with curiosity and interest, he gazed thoughtfully at the spoon and the sugar-tongs. Suddenly thrusting the tea-ladle under Bräsig's nose, he asked: "Do you know this?" as emphatically as if Bräsig had stolen it and were now required to confess his guilt. "Yes," was the answer, "what do you mean?"--Upon which Baldrian held the sugar-tongs out to Kurz and asked if he knew them.--He acknowledged that he did, adding that they belonged to Joseph.--"Yes" the rector went on, "you know them, that is to say, you have an idea of them as sensible objects of knowledge; you can distinguish them from other objects by their colour, brightness and shape, but you do _not_ know the moral teaching I derive from them."--Here he looked round upon them all as if to challenge anyone to dispute his assertion.--"No, you are ignorant of that, so I must make it known to you and explain it to you. Look, before long the careful mistress of this house will come, and taking these things which in appearance have no connection with each other, and will lay them side by side in the same tea-caddy; in thousands of households they are to be found in the same tea-caddy, and for thousands of years this has been the case. It is a custom sanctified by its antiquity, and what is joined together ought not to be put asunder. Adam"--holding up the sugar-tongs--"and Eve"--holding up the tea-ladle--"were joined together, for they were created for one another"--he held up both the tongs and the ladle--"and God Himself put them in the tea-caddy of paradise. And what did Noah do? He built an ark--or a tea-caddy, if you like to give it that name, dear friends--and called male and female, and they came at once in obedience to his call." He now made the sugar-tongs walk across the table, pressing the ends together and letting them out again as he did so, and then he made the tea-ladle follow close behind the tongs. "And went ....."--"Come in!" shouted Bräsig who heard a knock at the door, and in came Fred Triddelfitz. Hawermann had sent him to ask Mrs. Nüssler to lend him some rape-cloths, for the rape harvest was about to begin. This interruption obliged the rector to stop short in his harangue.--Joseph promised to give Hawermann what he required. Fred could not help wondering what had happened when he smelt the punch, and saw the rector standing up in the position he had been wont to assume in former times when Fred was a schoolboy, and the rector was about to cane him for some juvenile offence, so he crossed the room softly on tip-toe, and seated himself quietly. Then Joseph said; "Give Triddelfitz some punch, Mina."--Fred drank his glass of punch, and the rector continued to stand, ready to go on with his speech as soon as order was restored.--"Let us begin at the beginning," said Bräsig, "for Triddelfitz knows nothing of what has happened."--"We were talking ...." began the rector, but Kurz broke in impatiently: "About the sugar-tongs and the tea-ladle, and you told us that they both belonged to the tea-caddy," then taking the things out of his brother-in-law's hand and tossing them into their places in the tea-box, he went on: "There they are, male and female in Noah's ark, and now I think we may talk about our own affairs. You must know, Triddelfitz, that we are rejoicing over a double engagement, and that's the reason that the rector here wanted to preach us a sermon as a sort of ornament to the plain matter of our discourse. How is Hawermann?"--"Quite well, thank you," said Fred rising, then turning to the lovers he congratulated them, at first ceremoniously, but ended in an off-hand sort of way as if it were only a birthday, and the twins were betrothed every year.--The rector still remained standing, the better to seize his opportunity.