s a polyhistor, and a walking encyclopaedia, and people
turned over the leaves of him when they wanted information on any
point. It was only on the rarest occasions that he was unable to supply
the information required on the spot, but, if he couldn't, he would go
rummaging in various libraries till he could get at it, and then emerge
with it, greatly delighted. It was remarkable that when (as usual) he
was reading in society, to all appearance completely absorbed in his
book, he heard, and took in, everything that was being said around him,
and would often strike in with some most apposite observation, or laugh
at anything witty in a high tenor laugh, without looking up from his
book.

Commissionsrath Bosswinkel had been at school with Tussmann at the Grey
Friars, and from that period dated the intimate friendship which there
had always been between them. Tussmann saw Albertine grow up from
childhood; and, on her twelfth birthday, after presenting her with a
bouquet, the finest that money could procure from the first florist in
Berlin, kissed her hand for the first time with an amount of courtesy
and ceremonious deference which no one would have supposed him to be
capable of. Dating from that day there dawned in the breast of the
Commissionsrath an idea that it would be a very good thing if his old
schoolfellow were to marry Albertine. He wanted to get Albertine
married, and he thought this would be about the least troublesome way
of getting it done. Tussmann would be content with very little in the
shape of portion, and Bosswinkel hated bother of every kind, disliked
making new acquaintances, and, in his capacity of a Commissionsrath,
thought a great deal more of money than he ought to have done. On
Albertine's eighteenth birthday he propounded this scheme (which he had
previously kept to himself) to Tussmann.

The Clerk of the Privy Chancery was at first alarmed at the suggestion.
The idea of entering the matrimonial estate, particularly with so
youthful a lady, was more than he could quite see his way to. But he
got accustomed to it by degrees, and one day, when Albertine, at her
father's instigation, gave him a little purse, worked by her own hands
in the prettiest of colours (addressing him by his much-prized "title"
as she did so), his heart blazed up in a sudden flame of affection. He
told the Commissionsrath at once that he had made up his mind to marry
Albertine, and as Bosswinkel immediately embraced him in