stood talking to
Jonathan a long, long time. Spirits alive to all that goes forward, who
can never meet anybody without asking eagerly, "Wherever has he been?
Wherever is he going? Whatever is he doing?" and so on, had made out
that the young advocate very often visited the beautiful unknown, in
fact almost every day and at night-time, when he spent several hours
with her. It was soon the talk of the town that the lawyer Jonathan
Engelbrecht had got entangled in the dangerous toils of the young
unknown adventuress.

It would have been, both then and always, entirely contrary to Master
Wacht's character to make use of this apparent erring conduct of the
young advocate as a weapon against poor Nanni. He left it to Dame
Barbara and her whole following of gossips to keep Nanni informed of
all particulars; from them she would learn every item of intelligence,
and that, he made no doubt, with a due amplification of all the
details. The crisis of the whole affair was reached when one day the
young lawyer suddenly set off on a journey along with the lady, nobody
knew whither. "That's the way frivolity goes on; the forward young
gentleman will lose his business," said the knowing ones. But this was
not the case; for not a little to the astonishment of the public, old
Eichheimer himself attended to his foster-son's business with the most
painstaking care; he seemed to be initiated into the secret about the
lady and to approve of all the steps taken by his foster-son.

Master Wacht never spoke a word about the matter, and once when poor
Nanni could no longer hide her trouble, but moaned in a low tone, her
voice half-choked with tears, "Why has Jonathan left us?" Master Wacht
replied in an off-handed way, "Ay, that's just what lawyers do. Who
knows what sort of an intrigue Jonathan has got entangled in with the
stranger, thinking it will bring him money, and be to his advantage?"
Then, however, Herr Pickard Leberfink was wont to take Jonathan's side,
and to assert that he for his part was convinced the stranger could be
nothing less than a princess, who had had recourse to the already
world-renowned young advocate in an extremely delicate law-suit And
therewith he also unearthed so many stories about lawyers who, through
especial sagacity and especial penetration and skill, had unravelled
the most complicated difficulties, and brought to light the most
closely hidden things, till Master Wacht begged him for goodness' sake
to hol