udovic had in some sort fallen into the hands of his relative
the town-clerk. Ludovic's father was still alive; but he was a
thriftless, aimless man, who had never been of service either to his
wife or children, and at this moment no one knew where he was living,
or what he was doing. No one knew, unless it was his son Ludovic,
who never received much encouragement in Nuremberg to talk about his
father. At the present moment, Peter Steinmarc and his cousin, though
they had not actually quarrelled, were not on the most friendly
terms. As Peter, in his younger days, had been clerk to old Tressel,
so had Ludovic been brought up to act as clerk to Peter; and for
three or four years the young man had received some small modicum of
salary from the city chest, as a servant in the employment of the
city magistrates. But of late Ludovic had left his uncle's office,
and had entered the service of certain brewers in Nuremberg, who
were more liberal in their views as to wages than were the city
magistrates. Peter Steinmarc had thought ill of his cousin for making
this change. He had been at the trouble of pointing out to Ludovic
how he himself had in former years sat upon the stool in the office
in the town-hall, from whence he had been promoted to the arm-chair;
and had almost taken upon himself to promise that the good fortune
of Ludovic should be as great as his own, if only Ludovic for the
present would be content with the stool. But young Valcarm, who by
this time was four-and-twenty, told his cousin very freely that
the stool in the town-hall suited him no longer, and that he liked
neither the work nor the wages. Indeed, he went further than this,
and told his kinsman that he liked the society of the office as
little as he did either the wages or the work. It may naturally be
supposed that this was not said till there had been some unpleasant
words spoken by the town-clerk to his assistant,--till the authority
of the elder had been somewhat stretched over the head of the young
man; but it may be supposed also that when such words had once been
spoken, Peter Steinmarc did not again press Ludovic Valcarm to sit
upon the official stool.

Ludovic had never lived in the garret of the red house as Peter
himself had done. When the suggestion that he should do so had
some years since been made to Madame Staubach, that prudent lady,
foreseeing that Linda would soon become a young woman, had been
unwilling to sanction the arrangement.