d, in spite of all his protestations, Tussmann had to submit to
Bosswinkel's wrapping a white handkerchief about his head, and sending
him home in a cab to Spandau Street.

"And what's _your_ news, Manasseh?" the Commissionsrath inquired.
Manasseh simpered most deferentially, and with much amiability, and
said Mr. Bosswinkel would scarcely be prepared for the news he had to
tell him, which was that that splendid young fellow, his nephew
Benjamin Duemmerl, worth close upon a million of money, had just been
created a baron on account of his remarkable merits, was recently come
back from Italy, and had fallen desperately in love with Miss
Albertine, to whom he intended to offer his hand.

We see this young. Baron Duemmerl continually in the theatres, where he
swaggers in a box of the first tier, and oftener still at concerts of
every description. So that we well know him to be tall, and as thin as
a broom-handle; that in his dusky yellow face, overshadowed by jetty
locks and whiskers, in his whole being, he is stamped with the most
distinctive and unmistakeable characteristics of the Oriental race to
which he belongs; that he dresses in the most extravagant style of
the very latest English fashion, speaks several languages, all in the
self-same twang (that of "our people"); scrapes on a violin, hammers on
the piano; is an art connoisseur without acknowledge of art, and would
fain play the part of a literary Mecaenas; tries to be witty without
wit, and _spirituel_ without _esprit_; is stupidly forward, noisy, and
pushing. In short, to use the concise and descriptive expression of
that numerous class of individuals amongst whom his desire is to shove
himself, an insufferable snob and boor. When we add to all this that he
is avaricious and dirtily mean in everything that he does, it cannot be
otherwise than that even those less elevated souls that fall down and
worship wealth very soon leave him to himself.

When Manasseh mentioned this nephew, the thought of that approximation
to a million which "Benjie" possessed passed through the
Commissionsrath's mind; but along with that thought came the objection
which, in his opinion, made the idea of him as a son-in-law impossible.

"My good Manasseh, you are forgetting that your nephew belongs to the
old religion, and that----"

"Ho!" cried Manasseh, "what does _that_ matter? My nephew is in love
with your daughter, and wants to make her happy. A drop or two of water
more or le