"Your wretched, desperate, bat eternally grateful and devoted
"Gottlieb Pigglewitch.
"P.S.--My address is 'Candidate Gottlieb Pigglewitch, Berlin, 52 Ensel Street, care of Frau Wiebe.'"
With a face darkening as he read, Egon perused this precious epistle, tossing it disdainfully aside when he had finished reading it. "Miserable scoundrel!" he muttered. "What a worthless mass of hypocritical gratitude, servility, stupidity, and dishonesty the creature must be, thus to threaten me indirectly in hopes of getting more money from me! He talks to me of arrest, and thinks that for fear of it I shall send him another four thousand marks that he may be plucked for the third time by sharpers. No, my worthy Pigglewitch, you have reckoned without your host this time; not a mark will you get!"
He paced his room to and fro, deciding that any further thought of the miserable letter and the rogue who had penned it was foolish, and yet he could not banish it from his mind.
Was the threat so very ridiculous? If the true Pigglewitch had the courage to attempt it he might bring the false one into a deal of trouble, as Egon's sober second thought could not but admit.
The bearing of a feigned name was legally a crime, but that was of no consequence in Egon's mind. If he chose early the next morning to go to Berlin instead of to Breslau, who could succeed in finding the Pigglewitch who had vanished from Osternau? Nobody would suppose that Egon von Ernau, suddenly appearing in the capital again after a short pleasure-trip, had for a day or two taken it into his head to play the part of a Candidate Gottlieb Pigglewitch. The real Pigglewitch could not betray him, for he knew him only as Fritz Fortune. The false Pigglewitch simply vanished, leaving not a trace behind.
What would the world say if the Egon von Ernau whom it believed dead should suddenly appear safe and sound in Berlin? Egon laughed as he pictured to himself his reception in the paternal mansion, the faces of the servants, and the amazement of his father thus interrupted in his successful performance of the part of a broken-hearted parent. His poor father! But there would be some consolation for him in the sensation caused by his son's return. He could drive about town in his carriage, and, with a beaming countenance, inform all his friends, 'My son lives, I am the happiest of fathers!' Whether in joy or in woe, he could still be the model parent.
Would it not be best perhaps to cut the Gordian knot of his foolish adventure after this fashion? Yes, it would be his wisest course to leave Castle Osternau on the morrow, never to return. And what of the future? He had never formerly thought of the future, he did so now for the first time.
He would doubtless be received with enthusiasm, would be the topic of the gossip of the capital for weeks, all the silly rumours which had been flying about with regard to him would die away of themselves, Bertha von Massenburg need not leave Berlin, for--here Egon shuddered--the betrothal could take place as agreed upon, the betrothal to which Egon had thoughtlessly consented because it was of no consequence to him what woman was the sharer of his tedious existence. All women seemed alike calculating, frivolous, insignificant. He had given his consent, it could not be withdrawn.