a reputation not undeserved. With this person Mind learnt his art of
drawing, and colouring with water-colours, &c. but nothing more; in all
the other branches of human knowledge he remained at the lowest grade;
for he could with difficulty be made to write his name, and he had not
the slightest idea of arithmetic. Thus, for example:--once, when he had
to pay the postman six kreuzers for a letter, and Madame Freudenberger
gave him the money in two silver pieces, he positively refused to take
them and carry them down, affirming that two pieces were not enough;
and, though his mistress assured him that these were equal in value to
six kreuzers, still he persisted in his refusal, and went on grumbling
until the six kreuzers, one by one, were counted into his hand. This
ignorance and helplessness his master was not slow to take advantage of,
so that poor Mind never once thought of looking about him for a better
place. From his entrance into Freudenberger's house up to the time of
his death, there is nothing to tell of him except that he spent his
whole life on the selfsame stool, busied in colouring Freudenberger's
sheets so long as he was alive, and, after his death, in drawing and
painting, after his own fancy, bears, cats, and children at play, for
the benefit of the widow, with the same pitiful day's wages which he had
formerly received from his master. Many artists, after Freudenberger's
death, would gladly have taken poor Mind into their service, but, like
his beloved cats, he was so attached to the house, to his corner and its
appurtenances, that he constantly turned a deaf ear to such proposals;
and, at last, when Madame Freudenberger began to notice that the people
wished to buy away her Friedli from her, she would not let them come
near him; and only at rare times, and by way of special favour, allowed
a few acquaintances, whom she could depend on, to visit him in her
presence. She used, for the most part, to sit beside him herself, with
her knitting implements, spurring him on to work. When he had to copy
any of his drawings, he usually sketched the outline of them against the
glass of the window; and if, on these occasions, it chanced that some
boy, cat, dog, or other street passenger he might think worth looking
at, withdrew his eye for a moment from the work, his taskmistress failed
not to squall forth--"Gaping out again! Not a bit of work done all day!
Sit down with thee! Mind thy paper, and give over spying!"