"I thank you," I added. "I have certainly put your commentatorial patience to a severe trial."
"One speaks of oneself," he replied, "generally pretty willingly. We have that feeling in common with all mortals."
"But," I interposed, "it seems to me that you enjoy your comfortable room very little, spite of all its comforts, if you neither dine nor take your tea there of an evening."
"Tea!" he exclaimed, "tea! yes that is a right good beverage, but for daily use a little too sentimental. Look you--our course of life is this:--In the morning we pursue our studies over a cup of coffee, and a pipe of tobacco; then we go to the classes. About twelve o'clock we dine; then to the coffeehouse; and how much we study after that, or how we otherwise employ ourselves, you will presently see. But in the evening, we resort to the Kneip, and drink no tea, but beer; and to the Kneip we now cordially invite you.
"But don't think we despise what may be called your national beverage; for that also, comes a time. When in the long evenings we sit behind our books, and the anticipation of the examination stands like a spectre at the door, and bars it to our egress, then, praised be tea! and its black brother, coffee; it is then they who must cheer us, when the spirit of life threatens to faint, quiver, and expire. But excuse me, I must now unto the college, which I cannot to-day very well _schwänzen_. So fare ye well!"
N. B.--The expression Ein Kolleg schwänzen--to tail a lecture--means, to put off its attendance. The term is derived from an earlier meaning of the word _schwänzen_, for which the term _durch-brennen_, to burn through, is now used, and is equivalent to the English phrase, "to give leg-bail to your creditors." In the persiflage on the _Burschen-comment_, entitled "_Dissertatio de Quomodone, etc_.," by Martial Schluck, from which we have before quoted, it is said, "an honourable Bursche has the right not to pay his debts; that is, he may _schwänzen_ and _squiscion_ himself, make a _squis_ in his shoes,--meaning that he may sacrifice his tail like a fox, who will rather lose his tail than his life; and thus will the student rather leave behind him his trunk and cloak-bag, than wait to be clapped into prison."