or that man, as the case might be, drinking three or four glasses of liquor, smoking, submitting to the enticement of cards,—and then they went home.
Under the veranda, whose walls were covered with a whole mass of pictures cut out of our leading periodicals, the dignitaries sat at a round table. Here they discussed politics in the higher style: local, national, Austrian, and European affairs were rummaged through in all seriousness. Here the strategical doctor placed his men on the townhall chessboard, ready for any attack. Here the initiated ones learned from still wet manuscripts of the little scandals and inventives that The Free Citizen would contain in its next number. In her anxiety, the burgomistress frequently saw that veranda, at about half past eight in the evening, blown up by the dynamite of anarchists,—an enchanting picture,—what a pity that it was only a picture!
Nine o’clock. The garden was merged in
