, anyway, is listening and spying continually, and one has to
take care not to let her hear things. I presume she has been telling
tales out of school as it is."

"Send her away then, if you have no confidence in her."

"I would have done it long ago, but I can't let her go until we have
paid her wages. We're several months behind with her."

"Then pay her to-morrow."

"What with? Have you any money?"

"I? What an idea. You know perfectly well that the few marks of my pay
could never keep this household running. Hasn't your mother sent the
allowance this month?"

"No, she hasn't anything to spare this time."

"Oh, of course,--the old story."

"Is that meant for reproach? You knew yourself that we were not rich.
Do me the favor, therefore, to spare me your hints and complaints. I
find them tactless and inappropriate at this late time."

"Yes, you never want to hear about that. You ought to have known
before you married me that to keep house without money is a beastly
nuisance. Now we have this ceaseless dunning every day: one day it's
the butcher, the next the baker, and the day after the laundress,--and
they all want money. I can't cut it out of my hide."

"But wasn't it yourself who kept on urging and urging me until I
promised to marry you? Didn't you gainsay all my objections and insist
on our marriage?"

"True enough; but you and your mother ought to have known better. You
never ought to have consented, even if I was fool enough to insist on
it. Your mother knew how much it costs to keep house, and I didn't.
And now it is too late."

"That I know myself, and you needn't drive me crazy by constantly
nagging at me. And it isn't my fault, either; for if everything had
turned out the way my mother desired, you would not have had to
complain to-day that you are married to a woman without money. You
were not the only one from whom I had proposals."

"That you ought to have told me then," replied her husband, with an
ugly sneer. "I'm awfully sorry if I have interfered with your fine
prospects."

"You are more vulgar, Franz, than I thought you."

"Oh, yes, women can never bear the truth. If one doesn't flatter you
the whole time and play on the tuneful lyre of love, you at once begin
to find fault."

"Well, I haven't been surfeited with terms of affection by you."

"That is merely because I don't know how you have deserved them of me.
Is it perhaps because I don't know how to pay my shoemaker, or how t