“Ach, ja!” he would say, looking at me fixedly, as though assenting to some not exactly satisfactory conclusion his mind had come to about me,—“ach, ja!” And I would have given a good deal at the time to know to what peculiar feature of my fortune or my fate this half-compassionate exclamation extended.
“Is Eccles never coming back?” cried I, one day, as the post came in, and no tidings of him appeared; “is he never coming at all?”
“Never, no more.”
“Not coming back?” cried I.
“No; not come back no more.”
“Then what am I staying here for? Why do I wait for him?”
“Because you have no money to go elsewhere,” said he; and for once he gave way to something he thought was a laugh.
“I don't understand you, Herr Heinfetter,” said I; “our letter of credit, Mr. Eccles told me, was on your house here. Is it exhausted, and must I wait for a remittance?”
“It is exhaust; Mr. Eccles exhaust it.”
“So that I must write for money; is that so?”