eturn home with a
well-filled purse, when they can make up for their privations,--these
are the fixed purposes of their hearts, and they care little how the
world goes on around them. This is both prudent and necessary--it is
impossible to carry different objects in the head at the same time."

"Did Pilgrim really arrive in Athens at last?"

"Not a doubt of it; and he often told me that the Crusaders, when they
first saw Jerusalem, could not have felt more piety and enthusiasm than
he did, when he gazed for the first time at Athens. He rubbed his eyes,
and could scarcely believe that he really saw Athens, where marble
statues were to welcome and greet him. He went along the streets
sounding his clocks, but he did not succeed in selling a single clock
in Athens. He suffered great privations, and was at last only too glad
when he got employment. But what employment it was! For fourteen long
days, under the blue Grecian sky, he was engaged in painting the
railing of a public-garden green, within sight of the Acropolis!"

"What is the Acropolis?" asked Bertha.

"Explain the word to her, Herr Starr," said the Doctor.

The Techniker described, in a lively manner, the former glories of this
grand Athenian citadel, and the few fragments that still remain. He
promised on his return, to bring a sketch of it with him, and then
begged the Doctor to go on with his story.

"I have not much more to tell," resumed the Doctor. "Pilgrim contrived
to realize sufficient, by the sale of the clocks, to prevent his
being a burden on the parish. It required no little courage to
return home even poorer than he went, and to be the derision of his
neighbours; but as his artistic nature feels the most thorough contempt
for _purse-pride_, as he calls it, he always seems quite contented and
at his ease, and pays no attention to the jeers and gibes of his
companions. He arrived naturally, first of all, at the Morgenhalde. The
family there were all seated at dinner, and were in the act of saying
grace, when Lenz uttered such a cry, that his mother often said if she
were to hear it again it would be her death. The two friends embraced
eagerly. Pilgrim was soon as merry as ever, and said that he had best
luck at home, for he had arrived just as dinner was ready, and no one
would make him so welcome as the parents and their son at the
Morgenhalde. Old Lenz wished Pilgrim to live in his house altogether,
but he is unusually jealous of his independen