and plastered
stable--they are saying: I wouldn't take all his millions to be in
his shoes. Very assiduously did Sonnenkamp picture everything to
himself--and what will be in the paper in the morning?

Sonnenkamp sat silent a long time, buried in himself; at length a
letter was brought to him, bearing a large seal. Sonnenkamp started;
could the Prince have regretted what had happened, and have gone so far
as to join with him, and, truly great, thus defy the world? Long he
stared at the seal; but it was only that of the newspaper office, and
the weighty letter contained several pieces of gold. Crutius, with many
thanks, returned what he had received at the time he had gone up to the
villa, and explained that he would have sent it back much sooner if he
had not desired to pay it with interest.

"Pshaw! how contemptible," cried Sonnenkamp. For sometime he weighed in
his hand the gold that had been scornfully returned to him. So it is
then! Every one dares to scorn you, and you must be quiet when every
one pities you.

He had a revolver with him, he sprang up; he took it up, waved it in
the air, turned it over. "Yes, that was the course to take! To the
printing-office and shoot down this Professor Crutius like a mad dog!
But in this country that cannot go unpunished. And should he, then,
shoot himself, be thrown into prison, and have his head cut off?

"No, no! we must work the thing differently," he said to himself. He
laid the revolver back again in the case, and rang. Joseph came, he was
trembling. Who knows what the man-eater is going to do with _him_ now?

"Ah, master!" said Joseph, "I remain with you. The coachman Bertram has
taken service here in the house. I do not want double and treble wages,
which people say you will have to give now."

"Good! Who was your father, is he still alive?"

"Yes, indeed; my father is in the School of Anatomy, and when the
corpses of the suicides came to the dissecting-house, my father often
used to say: Yes, yes, when one has done that most frightful thing in
the world, he must be dissected into the bargain. Excuse me, Sir, I
too am quite confused. But the Professorin told me once, that every
one has done something in his life out of the way, and so we should
stand by and be true to one another."

A peculiar smile flitted over Sonnenkamp's countenance; the poor rogue
was playing the kind-hearted, and bestowing forgiveness upon him.

"So? the Professorin?" said he. In a momen