"Do not try any impertinence with me! I ask you once more; you--you have the audacity to aim at being my son-in-law?"
"Excuse me, Herr Commerzienrath; your first question was whether I wanted to marry your daughter."
"That is the same thing."
"You are quite right; and therefore you would perhaps do better Herr Commerzienrath, to consider me now your son-in-law--or we will say, son-in-law that is to be--and treat me accordingly."
I said this in a very grave firm tone, which I knew from experience seldom failed of its effect upon the really pusillanimous nature of the man. Instinctively he stepped back a couple of paces out of my reach, seated himself in his chair, adopted a sneering tone instead of his air of contemptuous indignation, and said in his driest business voice:
"I understand then, Herr George Hartwig, that you do me the honor to ask the hand of my daughter Hermine. The first points then to be considered, are the nature of your pretensions, the position you occupy in the world, and, in a word, your personal relations generally. You are, as far as I know, the son of a subaltern official, a young man who in his youth did no good, and for a horrible crime was punished with eight years----"
"Seven years, Herr Commerzienrath----"
"Counting the preliminary detention, and disciplinary punishment, eight years in the penitentiary----"
"Imprisonment, Herr Commerzienrath----"
"Who, thanks to the remissness or connivance of the authorities----"