catch the girls by their petticoats with the quickness of
lightning if they incautiously passed too near him. Now it was my
greatest delight to tease this brute in every possible way; and it was
enough to make one burst with laughing to see the beast fix his eyes on
me with such fierceness that he seemed ready to tear me to pieces if he
could but get at me. Well, what happened? Once, when I was amusing
myself in this manner, I hit him such a bang in the ribs with a stone
that in his fury he broke loose and ran right upon me. I tore away like
lightning, but--devil take it!--that confounded ditch lay right in my
way. What was to be done? The dog was close at my heels and quite
furious; there was no time to deliberate. I took a spring and cleared
the ditch. To that leap I was indebted for life and limb; the beast
would have torn me to atoms.

CHARLES VON M. And to what does all this tend?

SPIEGEL. To this--that you may be taught that strength grows with the
occasion. For which reason I never despair even when things are the
worst. Courage grows with danger. Powers of resistance increase by
pressure. It is evident by the obstacles she strews in my path that
fate must have designed me for a great man.

CHARLES VON M. (angrily). I am not aware of anything for which we still
require courage, and have not already shown it.

SPIEGEL. Indeed! And so you mean to let your gifts go to waste? To
bury your talent? Do you think your paltry achievements at Leipsic
amount to the _ne plus ultra_ of genius? Let us but once get to the
great world--Paris and London! where you get your ears boxed if you
salute a man as honest. It is a real jubilee to practise one's
handicraft there on a grand scale. How you will stare! How you will
open your eyes! to see signatures forged; dice loaded; locks picked,
and strong boxes gutted; all that you shall learn of Spiegelberg! The
rascal deserves to be hanged on the first gallows that would rather
starve than manipulate with his fingers.

CHARLES VON M. (in a fit of absence). How now? I should not wonder if
your proficiency went further still.

SPIEGEL. I begin to think you mistrust me. Only wait till I have grown
warm at it; you shall see wonders; your little brain shall whirl clean
round in your pericranium when my teeming wit is delivered. (He rises
excited.) How it clears up within me! Great thoughts are dawning in on
my soul! Gigantic plans are fermenting in my creative brain. Cursed
letharg