things began gradually to assume a more composed aspect.
Hans loved his wife; she loved him; he was industrious, she was careful;
and they trusted, in time, to bring her parents round, when they should
see that they were doing well in the world.

Again the saving scheme began to haunt Hans; but he had one luckless
notion, which was destined to cost him no little vexation. With the
stock of the shop, he had inherited from his father a stock of old
maxims, which, unluckily, had not got burnt in the fire with the rest of
the patrimonial heritage. Among these was one, that a woman can not keep
a secret. Acting on this creed, Hans not only never told his wife of the
project of becoming Buergermeister of Rapps, but he did not even give her
reason to suppose that he laid up a shilling; and that she might not
happen to stumble upon his money, he took care to carry it always about
him. It was his delight, when he got into a quiet corner, or as he came
along a retired lane, from his errands, to take it out and count it; and
calculate when it would amount to this and that sum, and when the full
sum would be really his own. Now, it happened one day, that having been
a good deal absorbed in these speculations, he had loitered a precious
piece of time away; and suddenly coming to himself, he set off, as was
his wont, on a kind of easy trot, in which, his small, light form thrown
forward, his pale, gray-eyed, earnest-looking visage thrown up toward
the sky, and his long blue coat flying in a stream behind him, he cut
one of the most extraordinary figures in the world; and checking his
pace as he entered the town, he involuntarily clapped his hand on his
pocket, and behold! his money was gone! It had slipped away through a
hole it had worn. In the wildness and bitterness of his loss, he turned
back, heartily cursing the spinner and the weaver of that most
detestable piece of buckram that composed his breeches-pocket, for
having put it together so villainously that it broke down with the
carriage of a few dollars, halfpence, thimbles, balls of wax and thread,
and a few other sundries, after the trifling wear of seven years, nine
months, and nineteen days.

He was peering, step by step, after his lost treasure, when up came his
wife, running like one wild, and telling him that he must come that
instant; for the Ritter of Flachenflaps had brought in new liveries for
all his servants, and threatened if he did not see Hans in five minutes,