I pleased. What business had he
to go and sell your mother for any amount of money-bags whatever? If he
did, I should expect the money bags to pay me for it."

With this they had reached the forest Walter never spoke a word;
breathing hard, he strode away as if Lucifer were at his heels. The
dwarf kept up with him, waving about his stick, and gesticulating with
grimaces so grotesque, as would have made any other companion laugh.
Now he stood still at a spot where the roads diverged, lifted his cap,
and turned round, for a last look at the little town he was leaving.

"I am truly thankful, that we definitively quarrelled, the Meister and
I, and did not make it up. Do you know, I actually did demean myself so
far as to write him a note this morning, with the conditions on which I
would have consented to return to him. For that he must miss me sorely,
no one can deny. So without ceremony, I wrote. I _may_ have been too
free and easy, and thawed too fast. But he certainly gave me back as
good as he got; for you know, when he is in the vein, he can write and
talk like Buonaparte; let him!--If I did knock under, it was for the
miserable reason that I could not find it in my heart to part from our
charming Mamsell, for all her abuse and scorn.

"Bah! when once I am away from her; I shall come to my senses soon
enough. But what I wanted to say to you, my boy, was this: follow my
example, do as I do, and cut your chalks. You have no reason to fear
that she will treat you ill; far more reason to fear the contrary.

"Do you know that she has given warning to her dangling lawyer?--and do
you know why? I will tell you; simply because she is smitten by those
two forget-me-nots of yours; and as you happen to be a spoon, you may
take your oath that some fine day you will inevitably be sold--that is,
married. You may stare if you like, and write me down an ass, if it be
not as I tell you. It would be a pity; for, after all, she is your
aunt; if not exactly, still she is old enough to be; and by the time
you are a man in your prime, like me, she will be a withered old thing,
and the very devil for jealousy, and you will have to sit by the
chimney-corner all your life, instead of seeing the world and enjoying
life while you are young, as every man ought to do.

"If I had been able to get her, I suppose I should have repented; but
then I was madly in love with her, which you are not. With you it would
have become a habit, if you go on