The Commissionsrath took hold of the noose, but instead of throwing it about the Goldsmith's neck, he threw it over the Jew's; and immediately he and the Jew began flying up to the ceiling and then down again. And so they went on, shooting up and down, while Benjie carried on his nose-concerto, and Tussmann laughed like a mad creature, till the Commissionsrath fell down nearly fainting in an arm-chair.
"Now's the time! now's the time!" Manasseh cried. He slapped his pocket, and out sprung an enormous, horrible-looking mouse, which made a spring right at the Goldsmith. But as it was jumping at him, the Goldsmith transfixed it with a sharp needle of gold, upon which it gave a yell, and disappeared, none knew whither.
Then Manasseh clenched his fists at the fainting Commissionsrath, and cried, with rage and hatred blazing in his face--
"Ha! Melchior Bosswinkel! thou hast conspired against me. Thou art in league with this accursed sorcerer, whom thou hast brought into thine house. But cursed, cursed shalt thou be. Thou and all thy race shall be swept away like the helpless brood of a bird. The grass shall grow on thy doorstep, and all that thou settest thy hand to shall be as the dream of the famishing, who sates himself, in dreams, with savoury food. And the Dā-lěs shall take up his dwelling in thine house, and consume thy substance. And thou shalt beg thy bread, in rags, before the doors of the despised people of God; and they shall drive thee away like a mangy cur, and thou shalt be cast to the earth like a rotten branch. And instead of the sound of the harp, moths shall be thy fellows, and dogs shall make a divan of the tomb of thy mother! Curses!--curses!--curses upon thee! Commissionsrath Melchior Bosswinkel!"
And, having thus delivered himself, this raging Manasseh seized hold of his nephew, and went storming out of the house with him.
Albertine, in her terror and horror, had taken refuge with Edmund, hiding her face on his breast; and he held her closely to him, though he had difficulty in mastering his own emotion. But the Goldsmith went up to those two, and said, with a smile, and in a gentle voice:
"Don't you be put out in the slightest by all this business: everything will come right. I give you my word for it. But, just now, you must bid each other good-bye, before Tussmann and Bosswinkel come back to their senses."
And he and Edmund left Bosswinkel's house.
CHAPTER V.
WHEREIN THE READER LEARNS WHAT THE DĀ-LĚS IS: ALSO HOW THE GOLDSMITH SAVES THE CLERK OF THE PRIVY CHANCERY FROM A MISERABLE DEATH, AND CONSOLES THE DESPAIRING COMMISSIONSRATH.