The next room,--to which it was, for some
unknown reason, deemed a high privilege to be admitted,--was
ornamented with a variety of trophies of the chase, which were
intended, no doubt, as incontestable proofs of the veracity of the
frescoed narrative. There were stuffed stags' heads crowned with
enormous antlers (of a species, as a naturalist asserted, which is not
found outside of North America), heads of bears, the insides of whose
mouths were painted in the bloodiest of colors, and boars, whose
upward-pointed tusks gave evidence of incredible blood-thirstiness.
Even the old clock in the corner (a piece of furniture which every
customer took pains to assure Mr. Hahn that he envied him) had a frame
of curiously carved and intertwisted antlers, the ingenious
workmanship of which deserved all the admiration which it received.
Mr. Hahn had got it for a song at an auction somewhere in the
provinces; but the history of the clock which Fritz told omitted
mentioning this incident.
In this inner room on the 19th of April, 1864, Mr. Hahn and his son
were holding a solemn consultation. The news of the fall of Duppel,
and the consequent conquest of all Schleswig, had just been received,
and the capital was in a fever of warlike enthusiasm.
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