down on Herr Carovius as one might look down
upon a flea that one had caught and was just in the act of crushing
between two finger nails. "Oh, ho," he said, "how interesting! Upon my
word, brother Carovius, you are an interesting individual. But if some
one were to offer me all the money in the world, I should not like to be
so ... interesting. Not I. And you, Marguerite, would you like to be so
interesting?"

There was something distinctly annihilating in this air of superiority.
It had its full effect on Herr Carovius: his unleashed laughter was
immediately converted into a gurgling titter. He opened his eyes wide
and rolled them behind his nose-glasses, thus making himself look like a
water-spitting figure on a civic fountain. Marguerite, however, timid as
she was, never saying a word without making herself smaller by hiding
her hands, glanced in helpless fashion from her brother to her husband,
and dropped her head before them.

Was the feeling of Herr Carovius for Andreas Doederlein one of hatred? It
was hatred and more. It was a feeling of venomous embitterment with
which he thought of him, his name, his wife, his child, the thick, bulky
wedding ring on his finger, and the gelatinous mass of flesh on his
neck. From that evening on he never again visited his sister. If
Marguerite got up enough courage to visit him, he treated her with
crabbed contempt. She finally came to the point where she would pass his
door with not a thought of entering it.

When the first child was born and the maid brought him the glad tidings,
he squinted into the corner, tittered, and made bold to say: "Well, my
congratulations. It is good that the Doederleins are not to become
extinct, for so long as one of them is living, _plaisir_ will not have
vanished from the earth."

Little Dorothea formed in time the habit of playing on the steps or
around the old windlass well in the backyard. Herr Carovius procured
forthwith a mean dog and named him Caesar. Caesar was tied to a chain, to
be sure, but his snarls, his growls, his vicious teeth were hardly
calculated to inspire the child with a love for the place near him. She
soon stopped playing at home.

Four years had elapsed since the Carovius-Doederlein wedding. Herr
Carovius was celebrating his birthday. Marguerite called with Dorothea.
The child recited a poem which she had learned by heart for her uncle's
benefit. Carovius shook with laughter when he saw the girl dressed up
like a d