"Your best way would be to leave the money in my business, and let me hand you whatever interest it draws."
"I don't understand business. A regular percentage suits me better."
On returning to the sitting-room they found a nice lunch set out by Annele herself, but her father seemed in a great hurry to be gone, and would take nothing. "It is your own wine, father," Annele insisted. "Do sit a few minutes with us, we see so little of you."
There seemed no seat on the Morgenhalde broad enough to bear the whole weight of the landlord's dignity. He drank a glass standing, and then went down the hill, frequently pressing his hand on his breast-pocket as he went. "Father is particularly uncommunicative to-day," observed Annele.
"He has some pressing business on his mind. I have just given him my two thousand six hundred florins that the bailiff borrowed."
"And what did he give you in exchange?"
"I don't know what you mean; nothing. I will ask him for a written receipt some time, since that is the custom."
"If you had asked my advice, you would not have given him the money."
"Annele, what do you mean? I am sure I ought not to take amiss anything you say to me when you thus mistrust your own father. But, as Franzl says, we must be indulgent with you now, and let you have your own way."
"Indeed!" said Annele. "No one need be indulgent with me. What I said about my father meant nothing. I don't know how I came to say it. Franzl must go. It is she who sets you against me."