My papers are all in order, Herr Commerzienrath----
"Learned the rudiments of blacksmithing for a few months in my factory, and now with the respectable capital of----"
"Fifty thalers cash, and a hundred and sixty thalers outstanding debts which I shall never collect----"
"And, I may add with future prospects corresponding; for as to what you told me day before yesterday of his highness's proposition to you, I do not attach any weight to them at all--you then, such a man as this, with such a past, such a position, such means, and such prospects, desire to marry the daughter of Commerzienrath Streber."
"To have your permission to address her, Herr Commerzienrath."
"My future father-in-law shot from under his bushy brows a searching look at my face, which probably assured him that his attempt to humiliate me availed as little as his former attempt to intimidate. He had to open another register. He rested his bald forehead in his hand, enveloped himself in a thick black cloud of silence, from which he suddenly snapped at me with the sharply spoken question:
"But if I were really not the millionaire, not the wealthy man you and every one have hitherto considered me--how then, sir; how then?"
The commerzienrath had sprung to his feet, and was standing before me, as I had taken my seat fronting him, with his hands on his back, bending forward, and his keen eyes piercing into mine.
"The circumstances would then be, as far as I am concerned, precisely what they were before; especially as your vaunted wealth has long been a matter of serious doubt with me, Herr Commerzienrath."
His piercing glances plunged into watery and uncertain mist, as he threw himself back in his chair, smote the arms of it with his hands, broke out into a crowing laugh ending in a coughing-fit, and between laughing and coughing cried: