That will do"-- and he held out a very lean yellow hand, peering from a pair of yellow ruffles.

It shook very much, and the shaking made all the rings upon it shine only the more.
"Well," says Mr.Billings, "if you wasn't a-going to abuse me nor mother, I don't care if I shake hands with you.

I ain't proud!" The Abbe laughed with great glee; and that very evening sent off to his Court a most ludicrous spicy description of the whole scene of meeting between this amiable father and child; in which he said that young Billings was the eleve favori of M.Kitch, Ecuyer, le bourreau de Londres, and which made the Duke's mistress laugh so much that she vowed that the Abbe should have a bishopric on his return: for, with such store of wisdom, look you, my son, was the world governed in those days.
The Count and his offspring meanwhile conversed with some cordiality.
The former informed the latter of all the diseases to which he was subject, his manner of curing them, his great consideration as chamberlain to the Duke of Bavaria; how he wore his Court suits, and of a particular powder which he had invented for the hair; how, when he was seventeen, he had run away with a canoness, egad! who was afterwards locked up in a convent, and grew to be sixteen stone in weight; how he remembered the time when ladies did not wear patches; and how the Duchess of Marlborough boxed his ears when he was so high, because he wanted to kiss her.
All these important anecdotes took some time in the telling, and were accompanied by many profound moral remarks; such as, "I can't abide garlic, nor white-wine, stap me! nor Sauerkraut, though his Highness eats half a bushel per day.

I ate it the first time at Court; but when they brought it me a second time, I refused--refused, split me and grill me if I didn't! Everybody stared; his Highness looked as fierce as a Turk; and that infernal Krahwinkel (my dear, I did for him afterwards)--that cursed Krahwinkel, I say, looked as pleased as possible, and whispered to Countess Fritsch, 'Blitzchen, Frau Grafinn,' says he, 'it's all over with Galgenstein.' What did I do?
I had the entree, and demanded it.

'Altesse,' says I, falling on one knee, 'I ate no kraut at dinner to-day.