caffolds and the workmen's feet cannot be avoided. And such damage
often does not become apparent until afterward. Often more
considerable repairs are required during the three years immediately
following the covering of the roof than for fifty years afterward. The
roof of St. George's added its testimony to the truth of this old
experience. The slate roof of the tower, on the contrary, which
Apollonius had attended to alone, bore gratifying witness to its
maker's obstinate conscientiousness. The jackdaws who inhabited it
would have been left in peace by his swinging seat for a long time if
an old master-tinsmith had not chosen to show his ecclesiastical
leanings by donating a tin ornament. This wreath of tin flowers which
Apollonius was to lay around the tower roof was now the cause of his
once more fastening his ladder to the broach-post. A little more than
six months had elapsed since he had taken it down.

In the meantime his strenuous efforts had not been without success. He
had kept his old customers and won new ones in addition. His creditors
had their interest and a small payment on the principal for the first
year; confidence in Apollonius and respect for him grew from day to
day and with them grew his hope and his strength, for which he paid by
redoubled exertions. If only the same thing could have been said of
his brother, of the understanding between him and his wife!

It was fortunate for Apollonius that he had to put his whole soul into
his purpose, that he had no time to follow his brother with his eye
and heart, to see how the man whom he was trying to save sank deeper
and deeper. When he rejoiced in his success, he did so from a feeling
of loyalty to his brother and his brother's family; Fritz saw
something quite different in his rejoicing and thought of nothing but
of how to destroy it.

In the beginning he had given his wife the greater part of the money
that he received weekly for his household expenses. Then he began to
keep back more and more and finally he carried the whole of it into
the places where the need of buying flatterers by treating them had
followed him more faithfully than had the respect of the town. The
experience he had had with the "important" people had not converted
him. His wife had been obliged to get on with less and less. Old
Valentine saw her distress, and from now on the house money went
through his, instead of her husband's, hands. Finally Valentine became
her treasurer