"You no want money, Herr von Dalton!" exclaimed the other, in amazement.
"You no want money! you draw eight hundred florin on Tuesday; you have four hundred on Wednesday evening, and seven rouleaux of Napoleons; on Sat.u.r.day again I send you twenty thousand franc!"
"All true,--every word of it," said Dalton; "but there"s no use telling a hungry man about the elegant dinner he ate last week! The short of the matter is, I want cash now."
Kraus appeared to reflect for a few minutes, and then said, "If a leetle sum will do--"
"Faix! it will not. I want five hundred Naps., at the very least."
Kraus threw down his pen, and stared at him without speaking.
"One would think from your face, Abel, that I was asking for a loan of the National Debt. I said five hundred Naps.!"
Abel shook his head mournfully, and merely muttered "Ja! ja!" to himself. "We will look over de account, Herr von Dalton," said he, at last; "perhaps I am wrong, I no say, I am sure; but I tink--dat is, I believe--you overdraw very much your credit."
"Well, supposing I did; is it the first time?" said Dalton, angrily.
"Ain"t I as good a man now as I was before?"
"You are a very goot man, I know well; a very goot and a very pleasant man; but you know de old German proverb, "Das Gut ist nicht Gelt.""
"I never heard it till now," muttered Peter, sulkily; "but if a robber in this country put a pistol to your head, he "d be sure to have a proverb to justify him! But to come to the point,----can I have the money?"
"I fear very mush--No!" was the dry response.
"No,--is it?" cried Dalton, starting up from his seat; "did you say no?"
Kraus nodded twice, slowly and deliberately.
"Then bad luck to the rap ever you"ll see more of _my_ money," cried Peter, pa.s.sionately. "You old Jewish thief, I ought to have known you long ago; fifty, sixty, seventy per cent I was paying for the use of my own cash, and every bill I gave as good as the bank paper! Ain"t you ashamed of yourself, tell me that,--ain"t you downright ashamed of yourself?"
"I tink not; I have no occasions for shame," said the other, calmly.
"Faix! I believe you there," retorted Dalton. "Your line of life doesn"t offer many opportunities of blushing. But if I can"t bring you to know shame, maybe I can teach you to feel sorrow. Our dealing is ended from this day out. Peter Dalton does n"t know you more! He never saw you! he never heard of your name! D"ye mind me now? None of your boasting among the English here that you have Mr. Dalton"s business. If I hear of your saying it, it"s not a contradiction will satisfy me. Understand me well--it"s not to leave a mark of friendship that I "ll come in here again!"
The fierce tone in which Dalton said these words, and the gesture he made with a tremendous walking-stick, were certainly well calculated to excite Abel"s terrors, who, opening a little movable pane of the window, looked out into the street, to a.s.sure himself of succor in case of need.
"What"s the use of family, rank, or fortune," cried Dalton, indignantly, as he paced up and down the little shop, in a perfect frenzy of pa.s.sion, "if a little dirty Jew, with a face like a rat-terrier, can insult you? My uncle is one of the first men in Austria, and my daughter"s a Princess; and there"s a creature you would"t touch with the tongs has the impudence to--to--to--" Evidently the precise offence did not at once occur to Dalton"s memory, for after several efforts to round off his phrase--"to outrage me----to outrage me!" he cried, with the satisfaction of one who had found a missing object.
Meanwhile Abel, who had gradually resumed his courage, was busily engaged in some deep and intricate calculations, frequently referring to a number of ill-scrawled sc.r.a.ps of paper on a file before him, not heeding, if he heard, the storm around him.
"Dere, saar," said he at length, as he pushed a slip of paper towards Dalton,--"dere, saar; our affairs is closed, as you say. Dere is your debit,--eighteen hundred and seventy-three florins, "convenzion money."
Dere may be leetle charges to be added for commissions and oder tings; but dat is de chief sum, which you pay now."
There was a sharp emphasis on the last monosyllable that made Dalton start.
"I"ll look over it; I"ll compare it with my books at home," said he, haughtily, as he stuffed the slip of paper into his waistcoat-pocket.
"Den you no pay to-day?" asked Abel.
"Nor to-morrow, nor the day after, nor, maybe, awhile longer," said Dalton, with a composure he well knew how to feel in like circ.u.mstances.
"Very well, den; I will have securities. I will have bail for my moneys before tree o"clock this day. Dere is de sommation before de Tribunal, Herr von Dalton." Aud he handed a printed doc.u.ment, stamped with the official seal of a law court, across the table. "You will see," added the Jew, with a malicious grin, "dat I was not unprepared for all dis.
Abel Kraus is only an old Jew, but he no let de Gentile cheat him!"
Dalton was stunned by the suddenness of this attack. The coolly planned game of the other so overmatched all the pa.s.sionate outbreak of his own temper that he felt himself mastered at once by his wily antagonist.
"To the devil I fling your summons!" cried he, savagely. "I can"t even read it."
"Your avocat will explain it all. He will tell you dat if you no pay de moneys herein charged, nor give a goot and sufficient surety dereof before de Civil Grericht, dis day, dat you will be consign to de prison of de State at Carlsruhe, dere to remain your "leben lang," if so be you never pay."
"Arrest me for debt the day it"s demanded!" cried Dalton, whose notions of the law"s delay were not a little shocked by such peremptory proceedings.
"It is in criminal as well as in civil Grericht to draw on a banker beyond your moneys, and no pay, on demand."
"There"s justice for you!" cried Dalton, pa.s.sionately. "Highway robbery, housebreaking, is decenter. There"s some courage, at least, in _them!_ But I wouldn"t believe you if you were on your oath. There is n"t such a law in Europe, nor in the East"Ingies"!"
Abel grinned, but never uttered a word.
"So any ould thief, then, can trump up a charge against a man----can send him off to jail--before he can look around him!"
"If he do make false charge, he can be condem to de galleys," was the calm reply.
"And what"s the use of that?" cried Dalton, in a transport of rage. "Is n"t the galleys as good a life as sitting there? Is n"t it as manly a thing to strain at an oar as to sweat a guinea?"
"I am a burgher of the Grand Duchy," said Abel, boldly; "and if you defame me, it shall be before witnesses!" And as he spoke he threw wide the window, so that the pa.s.sers-by might hear what took place.
Dalton"s face became purple; the veins in his forehead swelled like a thick cordage, and he seemed almost bursting with suppressed pa.s.sion.
For an instant it was even doubtful if he could master his struggling wrath. At last he grasped the heavy chair he had been sitting on, and dashing it down on the ground, broke it into atoms; and then, with an execration in Irish, the very sound of which rang like a curse, he strode out of the shop, and hastened down the street.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 278]
Many a group of merry children, many a morning excursionist returning from his donkey-ride, remarked the large old man, who, muttering and gesticulating, as he went, strode along the causeway, not heeding nor noticing those around him. Others made way for him as for one it were not safe to obstruct, and none ventured a word as he pa.s.sed by. On he went, careless of the burning heat and the hot rays of the sun,--against which already many a jalousie was closed, and many an awning spread,--up the main street of the town, across the "Plate," and then took his way up one of the steep and narrow lanes which led towards the upper town.
To see him, nothing could look more purpose-like than his pace and the manner of his going; and yet he knew nothing of where he walked nor whither the path led him. A kind of instinct directed his steps into an old and oft-followed track, but his thoughts were bent on other objects.
He neither saw the half-terrified glances that were turned on him, nor marked how they who were washing at the fountain ceased their work, as he pa.s.sed, to stare at him.
At last he reached the upper town; emerging from which by a steep flight of narrow stone steps, he gained a little terraced spot of ground, crossed by two rows of linden-trees, under whose shade he had often sat of an evening to watch the sunset over the plain. He did not halt here, but pa.s.sing across the gra.s.sy sward, made for a small low house which stood at the angle of the terrace. The shutters of the shop-window were closed, but a low half-door permitted a view of the interior; leaning over which Dalton remained for several minutes, as if lost in deep revery.
The silent loneliness of the little shop at first appeared to engross all his attention, but after a while other thoughts came slowly flittering through his muddy faculties, and with a deep-drawn sigh he said,----
"Dear me! but I thought we were living here still! It"s droll enough how one can forget himself! Hans, Hans Roeckle, my man!" cried he, beating with his stick against the doors as he called out. "Hanserl! Hans, I say! Well, it"s a fine way to keep a shop! How does the creature know but I"m a lady that would buy half the gimcracks in the place, and he"s not to be found! That"s what makes these devils so poor,--they never mind their business. "Tis nothing but fun and diversion they think of the whole day long. There"s no teaching them that there"s nothing like indhustry! What makes us the finest people under the sun? Work--nothing but work! I "m sure I "m tired of telling him so! Hans, are you asleep, Hans Roeckle?" No answer followed this summons, and now Dalton, after some vain efforts to unbolt the door, strode over it into the shop.
"Faix! I don"t wonder that you had n"t a lively business," said he, as he looked around at the half-stocked shelves, over which dust and cobwebs were spread like a veil. "Sorrow a thing I don"t know as well as I do my gaiters! There"s the same soldiers, and that"s the woodcutter with the matches on his back, and there"s the little cart Frank mended for him! Poor Frank, where is he now, I wonder?" Dalton sighed heavily as he continued to run his eye over the various articles all familiar to him long ago. "What"s become of Hans?" cried he at last, aloud; "if it was n"t an honest place, he would n"t have a stick left! To go away and leave everything at sixes and sevens--well, well, it"s wonderful!"
Dalton ascended the stairs--every step of which was well known to him--to the upper story where he used to live. The door was unfastened, and the rooms were just as he had left them--even to the little table at which Nelly used to sit beside the window. Nothing was changed; a bouquet of faded flowers--the last, perhaps, she had ever plucked in that garden--stood in a gla.s.s in the window-sill; and so like was all to the well-remembered past, that Dalton almost thought he heard her footstep on the floor.
"Well, it was a nice little quiet spot, any way!" said he, as he sank into a chair, and a heavy tear stole slowly along his cheek. "Maybe it would have been well for me if I never left it! With all our poverty we spent many a pleasant night beside that hearth, and many"s the happy day we pa.s.sed in that wood there. To be sure, we were all together, then!
that makes a difference! instead of one here, another there, G.o.d knows when to meet, if ever!
"I used to fret many a time about our being so poor, but I was wrong, after all, for we divided our troubles amongst us, and that left a small share for each; but there"s Nelly now, pining away--I don"t know for what, but I see it plain enough; and here am I myself with a heavy heart this day; and sure, who can tell if Kate, great as she is, has n"t her sorrows; and poor Frank, "t is many a hard thing, perhaps, he has to bear. I believe in reality we were better then!"