as
stored.

She opened the little wooden door. The cabinet-maker caught sight at
once of the desk. It had only three legs and was just about ready to
fall to pieces. "I can't make you an offer for that," said the
cabinet-maker, and began to rap on it here and there, somewhat as a
physician might sound a corpse. "The most I can offer you is twelve
groschen."

They haggled for a while, and finally agreed on sixteen. The man left at
once, having promised to send one of his men up in the afternoon to get
the desk. Theresa was already standing on the steps, when it occurred to
her that it might be well to go through the drawers before letting the
thing get out of the house: there might be some old documents in them.
She went back up in the attic.

In the dust of one of the drawers she found, sure enough, a bundle of
papers, and among them the receipt which Gottfried Nothafft had sent
back to Jason Philip ten years before. She read in the indistinct light
the confidential words of the deceased. She saw that Jason Philip had
received three thousand taler.

After she had read this, she crumpled up the paper. Then she put it into
her apron pocket and screamed out: "Be gone, Gottfried, be gone!"

She went down stairs into the kitchen. There she took her place by the
table and stirred a mixture of flour and eggs, as completely
absent-minded as it is possible for one to become who spends her time in
that part of the house. Rieke, the maid, became so alarmed at her
behaviour that she made the sign of the cross.

VI

When the midday meal was over, the children left the table and prepared
to go to school. Jason Philip lighted a cigar, and took the newspaper
from his pocket.

"Did you find anything for the second-hand furniture man?" he asked, as
he puffed away.

"I found something for him and something for myself," she said.

"What do you mean? You found something for yourself?"

"What do I mean? I mean just what I said. I have always known that there
was something crooked about that money."

"What money are you talking about? Listen, don't speak to me in riddles!
When you have anything to say to me, say it. Do you understand?"

"I mean Gottfried Nothafft's money, Jason Philip," said Theresa, almost
in a whisper.

Jason Philip bent over the table. "Then you have at last found the old
receipt, have you?" he asked with wide-opened eyes. "Ahem! You have
found the receipt that I've be