ahim was the only man who had
a certain influence over Petrowitsch, which he only retained because he
rarely exercised it. He would listen to no man who applied to him to
obtain any favour from Petrowitsch. They played cards together for
whole evenings, each paying his losses on the spot; and the restless,
lively disposition of Ibrahim made Petrowitsch more polite and
complaisant; and here, in the old family house, Petrowitsch seemed, in
some degree, inclined to assist his nephew in doing the honours.

While the clock was playing a grand piece, Petrowitsch stood beside the
work bench, examining everything that lay there or hung on the wall. At
last he took down the well known file, with its worn handle. When the
piece was finished, he said to Lenz--"This is your father's file, is it
not?"

"Yes; it belonged to my deceased father."

"I will buy it from you."

"You are not in earnest, surely, uncle: it is not likely I should sell
it."

"To me you certainly might."

"Not even to you, though I hope you will not be offended."

"Very well; then make me a present of it. I will give you something in
return some day."

"Uncle, I scarcely can tell--I really don't know what to say; but my
feeling is, that I cannot bear to part with the file."

"Very good!--'Stay there,'" said he to the tool, hanging it up again in
its place; and soon he was walking down to the valley with Ibrahim.

People came from miles distant, and from quite the other side of the
valley, to admire the clock; and Franzl was particularly pleased when
the first man out of her village, Kunslingen, the balance maker, came
and said openly--"Such an instrument has not been produced in our
country for a hundred years. It is a pity that it must be dumb while it
is travelling; and that it cannot go on playing all the way from here
to Odessa, saying--'I come from the Black Forest--clever men must live
there to complete such mechanism.'"

Franzl smiled with delight, and said--"This is the way the Kunslingen
people speak--no others, from any part of the world, are as clever as
they are." She told them how long and how eagerly Lenz had worked at
the clock, and how often he used to rise in the night to adjust some
part of the instrument, which had just struck him as requiring
improvement. There were mysteries in the trade which few could explain.
She, of course, was one of the initiated; and no girl's heart,
listening to a first declaration of love, could receiv