ment, but Proebler would not listen to him; he took a knife from
his pocket, and another from the table, and thrust them both into
Lenz's hand, saying wildly:--

"There you have got both knives; I can do you no harm, I don't want to
do you any harm: say it out at once, if I am not now a wretched
ragamuffin, and if I should not have been good for something if I had a
helping hand in the world. Your father-in-law--may the devil weigh him
one day, fairly, ounce by ounce in his scale!--has smeared his
creaking boots with my life's blood, and a fine polish it made! Say it
out--what am I?"

Lenz, of course, acknowledged that Proebler would have been a master
mind if he had kept the straight path. Proebler struck the table with
his clenched fist from joy. Lenz had considerable difficulty in
preventing his embracing him.

"I don't want any other funeral sermon, Lenz has preached mine; and now
say no more, let us drink away as hard as we can."

Proebler continued to talk wildly, though sometimes a clear thought
flashed through his wandering brain. It was not easy to ascertain
whether it was truth or a mere delusion, that he had lost his small
savings set aside against the evil day, through the Landlord's ruin, or
whether it was the sale of the mysterious work, for which he had
expected a patent, that had reduced him to this state of desperation.

Lenz felt quite faint and oppressed by the close atmosphere of the
room, and the clamour, and tumult, and his hair stood on end when he
saw before his eyes, a living example of the degradation to which a man
can sink, who has lost self respect, and whose only resource is to
forget himself if possible.

"Your mother had a good saying," said Proebler--"Did I tell you that
this is Lenz of the Morgenhalde?--Yes! Your mother! 'It is better to go
barefooted than to wear torn boots,' she always said. Do you know what
that means? I have another saying however--'When the horse is taken to
the knacker's yard, his shoes are first pulled off.' A tavern--that is
an iron shoe! Wine here!" cried Proebler, throwing a dollar on the
table.

This mention of his mother's name, and her being alluded to at all,
even in so strange a way, seemed a warning to Lenz, as if her eye had
been sternly fixed on him.

He rose, in spite of Proebler clinging to his arm. He wished to take
Proebler home with him, but he could not get him to move from the spot,
so Lenz requested the landlord not to allow the old m