Leopold was returning to the city deep in thought. He approaches the garden of the eccentric Hofrat. That man's favorite pet, a tame starling, is sitting on the roof peak over the water pump in the shade of a weeping willow. The bird is just starting its little song as Leopold is about to pass by, and it interjects a mocking phrase apparently meant for him: “There go riding three — rascals — out through the town gate”; at the same time the powdered head of the Hofrat emerges; he entreats the sculptor to come in for a while. “I have some news,” he says, “the pleasant nature of which will make you forget the impoliteness of that scoundrel up there. Monsieur Larkens was hurriedly called to a hearing this morning. We may expect a desired result; I was given a signal en passant and quite in general, but still from a reliable source. Bring your dear friends this consolation, but tell no one else.” Filled with joy, the sculptor thanked him and wanted to hurry away, when the Hofrat, who was in a fine mood this day, seized him by a coat button and said: “But do grant that fellow up there a glance! Note the philosophical clarity, the fine sarcasm, with which he sticks his nose out into the world! If we imagine, shall we say, that the pump shed is a monument, a gravestone, then it would doubtless better suit the elegiac tone for us to think that Philomela was there in the hanging willow branches, that sweet singer of melancholy and love, rather than even the most clever starling whose mere figure already has much too much of the erudite man of the world.”