cried--"What's all this? what do I see?"

"Ah, yes! yes, indeed!" Tussmann said, in a lamentable tone. "It
appears, unfortunately, to be the fact that Miss Albertine doesn't care
to have anything to do with me, and seems to cherish a remarkable
partiality for this young gentleman--this painter (whose acquaintance I
have not the honour of, by the way)--inasmuch as she kisses him without
the slightest hesitation or shyness, though she will scarcely give
wretched _me_ her hand. And yet I hope to place the ring on her lovely
finger very shortly indeed."

"Come away from one another, you two," the Commissionsrath cried out,
and forced Albertine out of Edmund's arms. But Edmund shouted that he
would never give her up, if it cost him his life.

"Indeed, sir!" said the Commissionsrath, with scathing irony. "Nice
business, upon my word! A fine little love-affair going on behind my
back here! Excessively pretty! Very nice indeed, my young Mr. Lehsen!
This is the meaning of your liberality--your cigars and your pictures.
He comes sliding into my house--leads my daughter into all this sort of
thing. A charming idea, that I should go and hang her round the neck of
a miserable beggar of a dauber, without a rap to bless himself with!"

Beyond himself with anger, Edmund had his mahlstick raised in the act
to strike, when the voice of Leonhard was heard crying, in tones of
thunder, as he burst in at the door--

"Stop, Edmund! don't be in a hurry. Bosswinkel is a terrible ass; he'll
think better of it presently."

The Commissionsrath had run into a corner, frightened by the unexpected
arrival of Leonhard; and, from that corner, he cried--"I really do not
know, Mr. Leonhard, what business you have to----"

But Tussmann had hidden himself behind the sofa as soon as he saw
Leonhard come in. He was crouching down there, and chirping out, in a
voice of terror--"Gracious powers! take care, Commissionsrath! Hold
your tongue; don't say a word, dearest schoolfellow. Good God! here's
the Herr Professor come, the Ball-Entrepreneur of Spandau Street."

"Come along out, Tussmann," said the Goldsmith, laughing; "Don't be
frightened, nothing's going to happen to you. You've been punished
enough already for that foolish idea you had of wanting to marry. That
poor face of yours is going to be green all the rest of the days of
your life."

"Oh Lord!" cried the Clerk of the Privy Chancery, almost out of his
mind, "my face green for ever and ever