ct
old fellow. No apprentice was allowed to give up the file for the lathe
till he could cut by hand as perfect an octagon as any machinery could
make, and no one of us was considered a finished workman till he could
make the smallest clock; for, as the old master used to say, the man
who can make small things will be most exact in great ones. No wheel
nor weight that had the least flaw in it ever left his shop. 'My credit
is at stake, and that of the whole district,' he would say. 'We must
keep up our good name.' Let me tell you one little anecdote, to show
what an influence he had over us young men. Young Lenz and I took up
smoking when we became journeymen. 'Very well,' said the old man, 'if
you will smoke, I cannot prevent it, and I don't want you to do it
secretly. I am sorry to say I have the same bad habit myself,--I must
smoke. But one thing let me tell you,--if you smoke, I shall give it
up, hard as it will be for me. It will never do for us all to smoke.'
Of course we did not contract the habit. Rather would we have lost the
use of our mouths altogether than have required such a sacrifice of our
master.

"And the mistress,--she stands this moment before God, and God will say
to her, 'You have been upright above most women on the earth. You have
had your faults, to be sure. You have spoiled your son; you might have
made a man of him by letting him seek his fortune in the world, and you
would not. But your thousands and thousands of good deeds known to none
but me, your allowing none to be evil spoken of, your making the best
of everything and everybody, even to speaking a good word for
Petrovitsch,--not one shall be forgotten. Come, and receive your
reward.' And do you know what she will say when God offers her a
reward? 'Give it to my son,' she will say; 'and, if there is any over,
there is such a one and such a one in bitter need, help him; I am
content to look on.' You would hardly believe how little she ate. The
old master often laughed at her for it, but really she was best
satisfied by seeing others eat; and her son is just as good, heart and
soul, as the mother was. I would lay down my life for him gladly."

Such was Faller's eulogy, and his deep voice often trembled with
emotion as he delivered it. The others, however, did not let him
monopolize young Lenz's praises.

Proebler maintained that he was the only one in the whole country round
who knew any more than the generation before him. "If people w