pay to-day?" asked Abel.

"Nor to-morrow, nor the day after, nor, maybe, awhile longer," said
Dalton, with a composure he well knew how to feel in like circumstances.

"Very well, den; I will have securities. I will have bail for my moneys
before tree o'clock this day. Dere is de sommation before de Tribunal,
Herr von Dalton." Aud he handed a printed document, stamped with the
official seal of a law court, across the table. "You will see," added
the Jew, with a malicious grin, "dat I was not unprepared for all dis.
Abel Kraus is only an old Jew, but he no let de Gentile cheat him!"

Dalton was stunned by the suddenness of this attack. The coolly planned
game of the other so overmatched all the passionate outbreak of his own
temper that he felt himself mastered at once by his wily antagonist.

"To the devil I fling your summons!" cried he, savagely. "I can't even
read it."

"Your avocat will explain it all. He will tell you dat if you no pay
de moneys herein charged, nor give a goot and sufficient surety dereof
before de Civil Grericht, dis day, dat you will be consign to de prison
of de State at Carlsruhe, dere to remain your 'leben lang,' if so be you
never pay."

"Arrest me for debt the day it's demanded!" cried Dalton, whose
notions of the law's delay were not a little shocked by such peremptory
proceedings.

"It is in criminal as well as in civil Grericht to draw on a banker
beyond your moneys, and no pay, on demand."

"There's justice for you!" cried Dalton, passionately. "Highway robbery,
housebreaking, is decenter. There's some courage, at least, in _them!_
But I wouldn't believe you if you were on your oath. There is n't such a
law in Europe, nor in the East'Ingies'!"

Abel grinned, but never uttered a word.

"So any ould thief, then, can trump up a charge against a man----can
send him off to jail--before he can look around him!"

"If he do make false charge, he can be condem to de galleys," was the
calm reply.

"And what's the use of that?" cried Dalton, in a transport of rage. "Is
n't the galleys as good a life as sitting there? Is n't it as manly a
thing to strain at an oar as to sweat a guinea?"

"I am a burgher of the Grand Duchy," said Abel, boldly; "and if you
defame me, it shall be before witnesses!" And as he spoke he threw wide
the window, so that the passers-by might hear what took place.

Dalton's face became purple; the veins in his forehead swelled like a
thick cordage, and he seem