fines which
he was compelled on this occasion to record against Gottlieb Brekel in
Heaven's high chancery is highly improbable. In the only known case of
such lachrymic erasure the provocation to profanity was a commendable
moral motive that was eminently unselfish. But when Gottlieb Brekel
swore roundly in his native German all the way from the south-west
corner of Tompkins Square to the corner of Third Street and the Bowery;
and from that point, when he had transacted his business there, all the
way back to the Cafe Nuernberg in Avenue B, his motives could not in any
wise be regarded as moral, and selfishness lay at their very root.

Gottlieb already found himself involved in serious difficulties with the
many customers who bought his lebkuchen; for with the departure of Hans
he had been compelled to fall back upon his own resources, and with
the most lamentable results. Great quantities of his first baking were
returned to him, with comments in both High German and Low German of
a very uncomplimentary sort. His second baking--saving the relatively
inconsiderable quantities consumed by the omnivorous children of St.
Bridget's School--simply remained upon his hands unsold. And now,
to make his humiliation the more complete, here was his discharged
assistant setting up as his rival; and with every probability that
the attempted rivalry would be crowned with success. Really there was
something, perhaps, to be said in palliation of Gottlieb's profanity
after all.

When he told at home that evening of Hans Kuhn's upstart pretensions,
his statements were received with an ominous silence. Aunt Hedwig
only coughed slightly, and continued her knitting with more than usual
energy. Herr Sohnstein only moved a little in his chair and puffed a
little harder than usual at his pipe. Minna, who was in her wire cage in
the shop settling her cash, only bent more intently over her books. But
when Gottlieb went a step further and said, looking very keenly at Herr
Sohnstein as he said it, that some great rascal must have lent Hans the
money to make his fine start, Aunt Hedwig at once bristled up and said
with emphasis that rascals, neither great nor small, were in the habit
of lending their money to deserving young men; and Herr Sohnstein, a
little sheepishly perhaps, and mumbling a little in his gray mustache,
ventured the statement that this was a free country already, and people
living in it were at liberty to lend their money to who