s no foundation
for the idea which has come into my head. No! I can't believe that
you've changed your mind about marrying my daughter; that you are
screening yourself behind all sorts of incredible nonsense and stuff
which nobody can believe a word of; that you are going to say to me,
'Commissionsrath: You and I are men of the world, and I can't marry
your daughter, because, if I do, the Devil will bolt away with my legs
and beat me black and blue!' It would be too bad, Tussmann, if you were
to try on a trick of that sort upon me."

Tussmann could not find words to express his indignation at this notion
on the part of his old friend. He vowed, over and over again, that he
was most devotedly in love with Miss Albertine; that he would die for
her without the least hesitation, like a Leander or a Troilus, and that
the Devil might beat him black and blue, in his innocence, as a martyr,
rather than he should give Albertine up.

As he was making these asseverations, there was heard a loud knocking
at the door, and in came that old Manasseh of whom Bosswinkel had been
speaking.

As soon as Tussmann saw him he cried out: "Oh, gracious powers of
Heaven! That's the old Jew who made the gold pieces out of the radish,
and threw them in the Goldsmith's face! The dreadful Goldsmith will be
coming next, I suppose."

And he was making for the door. But Bosswinkel held him fast, saying:
"Wait till we see what happens." And, turning to the old Jew, he told
him what Tussmann had said about him and the events of the previous
night in the wineshop and in Alexander Place.

Manasseh looked at Tussmann with a malignant grin, and said: "I don't
know what the gentleman means. He came into the wineshop last night
with Leonhard, the goldsmith (where I happened to be taking a glass of
wine to refresh me after a quantity of hard work which had occupied me
till nearly midnight). The gentleman drank rather more than was good
for him: he couldn't keep on his legs, and went out to the street
staggering."

"Don't you see," Bosswinkel said, "this is what comes of that terrible
habit of liquoring up? You'll have to leave it off, I can assure you,
if you're going to be my son-in-law."

Tussmann, overwhelmed by this unmerited reproof, sank down into a chair
breathless, closed his eyes, and murmured something completely
unintelligible in whimpering accents.

"Of course," said Bosswinkel, "dissipating all night, and now done up
and wretched."

An