affliction. I
saved them from punishment and shame. In return they trumpet forth my
misfortunes, and that which might have been altered by the considerate
silence of my friends, they cry aloud to all the world, and thereby
precipitate my fall."

"It is, then, really true?" asked Bertram, turning pale. "You are in
danger?"

"To-day is the last term for the payment of the five hundred thousand
dollars, which I have to pay our king, for the town of Leipsic. Our
largest banking-houses have bought up these claims of the king against
me."

"But that is not your own debt. You only stood good for Leipsic."

"That I did; and as Leipsic cannot pay, I must."

"But Leipsic can assume a portion of the debt least."

"Perhaps so," said Gotzkowsky. "I have sent a courier to Leipsic,
and look for his return every hour. But it is not that alone which
troubles me," continued he, after a pause. "It would be easy to
collect the five hundred thousand dollars. The new and unexpected
ordinance from the mint, which renders uncurrent the light money,
deprives me of another half million. When I foresaw Leipsic's
insolvency, I had negotiated alone with Hamburg for half a million of
light money. But the spies of the Jews of the mint discovered this,
and when my money was in the course of transmission from Hamburg they
managed to obtain a decree from the king forbidding immediately the
circulation of this coin. In this way my five hundred thousand dollars
became good for nothing."

"Horrible!" cried Bertram; "have you, then, not endeavored to save a
portion of this money?"

"Yes, indeed," cried Gotzkowsky, with a bitter laugh, "I have tried.
I wished to send fifty thousand dollars of my money to the army of the
allies, to see if it would be current there; but Ephraim had foreseen
this, too, and obtained a decree forbidding even the transit of this
money through the Prussian dominions. This new and arbitrary law was
only published after my money had left Hamburg, and I had grounds
to hope that I would not be prevented from bringing it through the
Prussian dominions, for it was concealed in the double bottom of a
wagon. But avarice has sharp eyes, and the spies who were set upon all
my actions succeeded in discovering this too. The wagon was stopped at
the gates of Berlin, and the money was discovered where they knew it
was beforehand, under this false bottom. But who do you think it
was, Bertram, who denounced me in this affair? You would