d, or wring your
hands, Hanserl. I 'm not going mad! These are not ravings! I 'll soon
convince you what I say is true." And I hurried to my room, and, opening
my trunk, took out my watch and some trinkets, some studs of value, and
a costly chain my father gave me. "These are all mine! I used to wear
them once, as commonly as I now wear these bone buttons. There were more
servants in my father's house than there are clerks in Herr Oppovich's
counting-house. Let me tell you who I was, and how I came to be what I
am."

I told him my whole story, the old man listening with an eagerness
quite intense, but never more deeply interested than when I told of
the splendors and magnificence of my father's house. He never wearied
hearing of costly entertainments and great banqueta, where troops of
servants waited, and every wish of the guests was at once ministered to.

"And all this," cried he, at last, "all this, day after day, night after
night, and not once a year only, as we see it here, on the Fraulein
Sara's birthday!" And now the poor old man, as if to compensate himself
for listening so long, broke out into a description of the festivities
by which Herr Oppovich celebrated his daughter's birthday; an occasion
on which he invited all in his employment to pass the day at his villa,
on the side of the bay, and when, by Hanserl's account, a most unbounded
hospitality held sway. "There are no portions, no measured quantities,
but each is free to eat and drink as he likes," cried Hans, who, with
this praise, described a banquet of millennial magnificence. "But you
will see for yourself," added he; "for even the 'yard' is invited."

I cautioned him strictly not to divulge what I had told him of myself;
nor was it necessary, after all, for he well knew how Herr Ignaz
resented the thought of any one in his service having other pretensions
than such as grew out of his own favor towards them.

"You'd be sent away to-morrow, younker," said he, "if he but knew what
you were. There's an old proverb shows how they think of people of
quality:--

'Die Joden nicht dulden
Ben Herrechaft mit Schulden.'

The Jews cannot abide the great folk, with their indebtedness; and to
deem these inseparable is a creed.

"On the 31st of August falls the Fraulein's birthday, lad, and you shall
tell me the next morning if your father gave a grander _fete_ than that!"

CHAPTER XVIII. THE SAIL ACROSS THE BAY

The 31st of August dawne