By a great effort I controlled myself. "Katrine Loebeg," I said, "this is no place for you. None but bad people live in this neighborhood--"
Pretzel interrupted me. "What did I tell you, Katrine? And here stand I, Pretzel, Gideon Wolf's best friend, the friend who is going one day to make him rich and in the opposite house lives Gideon himself. Oh, what bad people live here--what bad, bad people!"
"I have come with a fatherly intention, Katrine," I said, "and old Anna is with me--old Anna, who loves you, and wishes you nothing but good."
"First a kiss, and then a scratch," sneered Pretzel. "Think of old Anna loving you so dearly--she who said to you what she did about Gideon, who would not sleep in the same house with him, and who would not cook a meal for him for all the money that could be offered her! Dear me, dear me--what a benevolent, kind-hearted, backbiting old woman!"
I continued I would not be driven from my purpose by his sneers.
"I ask you to come and live with me as my daughter, Katrine. I will protect you as a father; I will provide for you as a father. Inquire of any person in the town about my character--"
"Yes, yes," said Pretzel, "ask Gideon Wolf for Master Fink's character. Ask Gideon, ask Gideon."
"--And you will learn that I have never wronged a human being--"
"Then Gideon Wolf is not human," said Pretzel, and I am an image of stone. You shall prove for yourself, Katrine, what kind of a man this is who stands before us. He shall himself show you his benevolent heart. Ask him but one question--whether, if you accept his offer, he will open his doors to Gideon Wolf, so that you may all live together in love and good-will?"
"Will you do this?" asked Katrine.