is hands too, but only the tips of his fingers could reach
each other. He looked as if he would have said: "My poor lad, Hanzli,
you too have a bad job of it now-a-days; in Mistress Nani's lifetime,
the key of the cellar lived in your pocket, and you were not then
obliged to empty my tankard."

The two countrymen were used to this silent language. They might have
conversed in their own tongue, to be sure. But then, who knows--in
short, there are cases--and Vendel and Hanzli were of this opinion--in
which least said is soonest mended.

And now Master Vendel's head began to wave very disastrously; his
whole appearance was one large, living, fat complaint. It was like
that feeling which a man experiences when he knows that there is
something the matter with him, something seriously wrong, but cannot
exactly tell what it is.

"Hanzli, my lad!" he exclaimed at last, in a very weak voice, after
they had exhausted their telegraphic repartee; "Hanzli, tell me what
is the matter with you."

Hanzli raised both his shoulders to his ears, extending the palms of
his hands outwards, and lifted his eyebrows to the top of his
forehead--implying by this gesture that he knew very well what was the
matter with him, but was wise enough to keep it to himself.

"Hm!" replied Vendel, and was again silent. He would not force the lad
to speak--an excellent policy, if intentional; for when words are not
forced, they force themselves. Hanzli by degrees shambled up nearer
his master, and after fidgeting about, coughing, and standing on one
leg, he suddenly turned round, placed his finger on the side of his
nose, and stooping to a level with Vendel's ear, whispered into it:

"Indeed, indeed, master, the misfortune is this, and this alone,--that
you have no heir."

"What have I not, Hanzli?"

"That you have no son or daughter."

At these words Vendel's eye opened wide, and he struck the table with
a force which sent the four-quart tankard dancing about as if the
tartar were in it; then, holding up his enormous face, he began to
look out of himself. An entirely new idea seemed to thrill through
him, as if he had just been assured that perpetual motion had not yet
been discovered, and that he was the man to discover it.

"You are right, Hanzli!" he exclaimed; "I have no son or daughter; and
what if I had?"

"Why then, you see, master," said Hanzli, looking behind him at each
word, "you see there would be something for the wife to do--som