unendurable tortures. On the other hand,
the Clerk of the Privy Chancery did not seem to be paying much
attention to what the goldsmith was saying. He was in high good-humour,
and his mind was full of quite other ideas and images; and, when the
goldsmith had ended, he asked, with many smiles, and in a lisping
manner: "Tell me, dear Herr Professor, if you will be so kind, was it
really Miss Albertine Bosswinkel who came and looked out of the window
of the Tower?"

"What?" cried the goldsmith, furiously--"what business have _you_ with
Miss Albertine Bosswinkel?"

"My dear sir!" said Tussmann, timidly--"good gracious! My dear friend,
she is the very lady whom I have made up my mind to marry!"

"Good God, sir!" the goldsmith cried, with a face as red as a furnace,
and eyes glaring with anger; "you must be out of your reason
altogether. _You_, an old, worn-out pedant, to think of marrying that
beautiful young creature! _You_, who, with all your erudition, and your
'diplomatic acumen,' taken from the idiotic treatise of that old goose
Thomasius, can't see a quarter of an inch before that nose of yours! I
advise you to drive every idea of the kind out of your head as quickly
as you can, or you will probably find that you stand a good chance of
having that weazened neck of yours drawn, on this autumn equinoctial
night!"

The Clerk of the Privy Chancery was a quiet, peaceable, nay, timorous
man, incapable of saying a hard word to anybody, even when attacked;
but what the goldsmith had said was just a trifle too infernally
insulting; and then, Tussmann had taken more strong wine than he was
accustomed to. Accordingly, there was no wonder that he did what he had
never done before in his life---that is, he burst into a fury, and
yelled out, right into the goldsmith's teeth: "Eh! What the devil
business have you with me, Mr. Goldsmith (whose acquaintance I haven't
the honour of); and how dare you talk to me in this sort of way? You
seem to me to be trying to make an ass of me, by all sorts of childish
delusions. I presume you have the effrontery to be paying your
addresses to Miss Bosswinkel yourself; you've got hold of a portrait of
her on glass, and shown it at the Town-hall in a magic-lantern held
under your cloak. My good sir, _I_ know something about these matters,
as well as _you_ do; you're going the wrong way to work if you think
you're going to frighten and bully _me_ in this sort of way."

"Be careful what you're ab