that Braesig understood nothing about such things.
"What!" said Braesig. "Have you ever been engaged to three girls at once.
I have, Sir, and quite openly too, and yet you say that I know nothing
about such things! But sneaks are all alike. First of all you catch my
fish secretly in the black pool, and then you catch little Mina in the
arbor before my very eyes. No, no, let him be, Mina. He shall not hurt
you." "Ah, uncle Braesig!" entreated Mina, "do help us, we love each
other so dearly." "Yes, let him be, Mina, you're my little godchild;
you'll soon get over it." "No, Mr. Braesig," cried Rudolph, laying his
hand on the old man's shoulder, "no, dear good uncle Braesig, we'll never
get over it; it'll last as long as we live. I want to be a farmer, and
if I have the hope before me of gaining Mina for my wife some day, and
if," he added slyly, "you will help me with your advice, I can't help
becoming a good one." "What a young rascal!" said Braesig to himself,
then aloud: "Ah yes, I know you! You'd be a latin farmer like Pistorius,
and Praetorius, and Trebonius. You'd sit on the edge of a ditch and read
the book written by the fellow with the long string of titles of honor,
I mean the book about oxygen, nitrogen, and organisms, whilst the
farm-boys spread the manure over your rye-field in lumps as big as your
hat. Oh, I know you!

"I've only known one man who took to farming after going through all the
classes at the high-school, who turned out well. I mean young Mr. von
Rambow, Hawermann's pupil." "Oh, uncle Braesig," said Mina, raising her
head slowly and stroking the old man's cheek, "Rudolph can do as well as
Frank." "No, Mina, he _can't_. And shall I tell you why? Because he's
only a gray-hound, while the other is a man." "Uncle Braesig," said
Rudolph, "I suppose you are referring to that silly trick that I played
about the sermon, but you don't know how Godfrey plagued me in his zeal
for converting me. I really couldn't resist playing him a trick." "Ha,
ha, ha!" laughed Braesig. "No, I didn't mean that, I was very much amused
at that. So he wanted to convert you, and perhaps induce you to give up
fishing? He tried his hand at converting again this afternoon, but Lina
ran away from him; however that doesn't matter, it's all right." "With
Lina and Godfrey?" asked Mina anxiously. "And did you hear all that
passed on that occasion too?" "Of course I did. It was for her sake
entirely that I hid myself in that confounded