It is comic.

Aber ohne zu schwoeren ich unterstehe mich schon ein Maedgen zu verf--wie Teufel soll ich's nennen.

Enough, Monsieur, all this is but what you might have expected from the aptest and most diligent of your scholars."[31] That all this was not mere bravado is distinctly suggested even in _Dichtung und Wahrheit_, where the wild doings of Leipzig are so decorously draped.
[Footnote 29: _Ib._ p.

105.] [Footnote 30: _Ib._ p.

116.] [Footnote 31: _Ib._ p.