iration. Then he accompanied him to the
carriage, and said at leave-taking, "Greet my little lad heartily, and
Mr. Wohlfart too. I have promised Karl to come to him at Christmas, on
account of the Christmas-tree; but my health is no longer as good as it
should be. I am forty-nine past."

A short time afterward, Eugene, writing to Anton, casually mentioned
that he had borrowed nineteen hundred dollars from father Sturm on a
note of hand. "Try to arrange the matter for me," said the letter; "of
course my father must know nothing of it. A good-hearted, foolish
fellow, that old Sturm. Think of something nice for his son the
hussar--something that I can bring him when I pay you a visit."

Anton flung down the letter indignantly. "There is no helping them; the
principal was right," said he. "He has squandered the money in golden
bracelets for a mercenary <i>danseuse</i>, or at dice with his lawless
comrades, and he now pays his usurer's bills with the hard earnings of
an honest working-man."

He called Karl into his room. "I have often been sorry to have brought
you into this confusion, but to-day I deeply feel how wrong it was. I am
ashamed to tell you what has happened. Young Rothsattel has taken
advantage of your father's good-heartedness to borrow from him nineteen
hundred dollars!"

"Nineteen hundred dollars from my governor!" cried Karl. "Had my Goliath
so much money to lend! He always pretended that he did not know how to
economize."

"Part of your inheritance is given away in return for a worthless note
of hand, and what makes it still more aggravating is the coolness of the
thoughtless borrower. Have you, then, not heard of it from your father?"

"From him!" cried Karl; "I should think not. I am only sorry that you
should be so vexed. I implore you not to make any disturbance about it.
You best know how many clouds hang over this house; do not increase the
anxiety of these parents on my account."

"To be silent in a case like this," replied Anton, "would be to make
one's self an accomplice in an unfair transaction. You must immediately
write and tell your father not to be so obliging in future; the young
gentleman is capable of going to him again."

Anton's next step was to write Eugene a letter of serious remonstrance,
in which he pointed out to him that the only way of giving Sturm
tolerably good security would be the procuring the baron's
acknowledgment of his son's debt, and begged that he would lose no