as a contingent contract to purchase, drawn up by himself, his right
to cancel the contract expiring in four weeks. He showed the bailiff
that nothing was wanting but the signatures, the insertion of the
purchase-price itself, and the amount of the forfeit that he,
Kohlhaas, would agree to pay in case he should withdraw from the
contract within the four weeks' time. Again Kohlhaas gaily urged his
friend to make an offer, assuring him that he would be reasonable and
would make the conditions easy for him. His wife was walking up and
down the room; she breathed so hard that the kerchief, at which the
boy had been pulling, threatened to fall clear off her shoulder. The
bailiff said that he really had no way of judging the value of the
property in Dresden; whereupon Kohlhaas, shoving toward him some
letters which had been exchanged at the time of its purchase, answered
that he estimated it at one hundred gold gulden, although the letters
would show that it had cost him almost half as much again. The bailiff
who, on reading the deed of sale, found that, strangely enough, he too
was guaranteed the privilege of withdrawing from the bargain, had
already half made up his mind; but he said that, of course, he could
make no use of the stud-horses which were in the stables. When
Kohlhaas replied that he wasn't at all inclined to part with the
horses either, and that he also desired to keep for himself some
weapons which were hanging in the armory, the bailiff still continued
to hesitate for some time. At last he repeated an offer that, once
before, when they were out walking together, he had made him, half in
jest and half in earnest--a trifling offer indeed, in comparison with
the value of the property. Kohlhaas pushed the pen and ink over for
him to sign, and when the bailiff, who could not believe his senses,
again inquired if he were really in earnest, and the horse-dealer
asked, a little sensitively, whether he thought that he was only
jesting with him, then took up the pen, though with a very serious
face, and wrote. However, he crossed out the clause concerning the sum
to be forfeited in case the seller should repent of the transaction,
bound himself to a loan of one hundred gold gulden on a mortgage on
the Dresden property, which he absolutely refused to buy outright, and
allowed Kohlhaas full liberty to withdraw from the transaction at any
time within two months.

The horse-dealer, touched by this conduct, shook his hand w