ted out of its dim state by a letter from Jason Philip.

He wrote that Daniel was loafing about in Nuremberg. Quite by accident
he had met him a few days before near the fair booths on Schuett Island.
His appearance was indescribable. He had tried to question him, but
Daniel had disappeared. What had brought him to the city he, Jason
Philip, could not see. But he was willing to wager that at the bottom of
it was some shady trick, for the fellow had not looked like one who
earns an honest living. So he proposed to Marian that she should come to
Nuremberg and help in a raid on the vagabond, in order to prevent the
unblemished name he bore from being permanently disgraced before it was
too late. As a contribution to her travelling expenses he enclosed five
marks in stamps.

Marian had received the letter at noon. She had at once locked up her
house and shop. At two o'clock she had reached the station at Ansbach;
at four she arrived in Nuremberg. Carrying her hand-bag, she asked her
way to Plobenhof Street at every corner.

Theresa sat at the cashier's desk. Her brown hair on her square
peasant's skull was smoothly combed. Zwanziger, the freckled
shop-assistant, was busy unpacking books. Theresa greeted her sister
with apparent friendliness, but she did not leave her place. She
stretched out her hand across the ink-stand, and observed Marian's
shabby appearance--the worn shawl, the old-fashioned little cloth bonnet
with its black velvet ribbands meeting in a bow under the chin.

"Go upstairs for a bit," she said, "and let the children entertain you.
Rieke will bring up your bag."

"Where is your husband?" asked Marian.

"At an electors' meeting," Theresa answered morosely. "They couldn't
meet properly, according to him, if he isn't there."

At that moment a man in a workingman's blouse entered the shop and began
to talk to Theresa urgently in a soft but excited voice. "I bought the
set of books and they're my property," said the man. "Suppose I did skip
a payment. That's no reason to lose my property. I call that sharp
practice, Frau Schimmelweis, that's what I call it."

"What did Herr Wachsmuth buy of us?" Theresa turned to the
shop-assistant.

"Schlosser's 'History of the World,'" was the prompt answer.

"Then you'd better read your contract," Theresa said to the workingman.
"The terms are all fixed there."

"That's sharp practice, Frau Schimmelweis, sharp practice," the man
repeated, as though this phrase s