Igelfeld's interest in, and extensive knowledge of, Romance languages take him abroad for conferences or vacations, where he finds adventure and mishap. He is invited to conferences because of the definitive book he researched and wrote, Portuguese Irregular Verbs, which sold about 200 copies to libraries, leaving several hundred of the original print run of this hefty tome. While at college, he commits his friend Prinzel to a duel, thinking him an athletic type of man, for whom von Igelfeld serves as second. Prinzel is not athletic and rather upset. Duels are fashionable on the campus; von Igelfeld accepted the challenge from a group who are well practised at fencing. Prinzel loses the tip of his nose in the duel. The surgeon who patches him up attaches the lost skin upside down. Von Igelfeld never again refers to his friend as an athlete. In another chapter, the three attend a conference in Zürich, choosing a hotel a little out of town with nicer walks outdoors. Seeing a tennis court, they decide to play a game, getting equipment and an old book on the rules of tennis (written by someone from Cambridge) from the hotel. After ten minutes reading the book, they start the game, with two playing and the third as referee. None of them can serve, which sounded simple in the book. No-one can achieve the required number of sets to win. They give up playing, attributing their failure to have a winner to the Cambridge book, after providing excellent entertainment to others in the hotel with a view of the tennis courts. Von Igelfeld sees a dentist for a troublesome tooth, deciding he will pursue her romantically. He gives Lisbetta, the dentist, a copy of his only book as a gift. She stands on the book to make it easier to care for her patients. He tells his colleague Unterholzer about this excellent new dentist. Unterholzer acts more quickly in courting Lisbetta, and the couple become engaged. Von Igelfeld endures the emotional challenge of attending their wedding. He then takes a vacation to Venice in September with the Prinzels, where he learns that the Venetians are not fond of German tourists, as not enough of them have been visiting. Oddly, he chances upon a Geiger counter in their hotel. He finds no evidence of radiation on himself. When Florianus Prinzel tries the device, it reveals radioactivity on his