"You so greatly indebted? To me?"
"To you, certainly. If, when you entered into the possession of your property five years ago, you had withdrawn the ten thousand thalers invested in my business, as I earnestly advised you to do, I might not now be in the pleasant situation of being able to return the money to you with my warmest thanks."
"For Heaven's sake," cried Gotthold, pushing back Herr Wollnow's hand, which was extended towards a larger package fastened with an India-rubber band.
"I have put aside the money at any rate," replied Herr Wollnow, "in cash and in good bonds."
"But I don't want it now, any more than I did then."
"Well," said Herr Wollnow, "I cannot persuade you to take it as earnestly as I did five years ago. To-day--I may venture to say it confidently--the money is perfectly safe, and I can give you the highest rate of interest. Then, when I was establishing a new business here under very peculiar circumstances, and in consequence of the impossibility of relying upon my business associates,--I mean the capitalists of this place--a crisis might occur at any moment, I only did my duty when I advised you to intrust your money, if not to more honest, to safer hands. Well, you would not hear of it; would have me keep the money; nay, I even believe I might have had it without interest."
"You will admit, Herr Wollnow, that in so doing I carried out my uncle's views."
"I don't know," replied the merchant. "Your uncle had a personal interest in leaving the money in my hands. The great profits which accrued to the business in Stettin through the new connections I formed, and I may say created here, were so important that they far outweighed the risk of a possible loss. But when your uncle gave you the free disposal of the property by will, he acknowledged that an artist's interests are and must be different from those of a business man."
"Why yes, the interests of his art," replied Gotthold earnestly; "I never had and never shall have any others. In this feeling, and this alone, after I had recovered from my first astonishment, I joyfully welcomed the rich inheritance that fell to my lot so unexpectedly."
"I know it," replied Herr Wollnow; "the assistance I have given from your property to that poor deserving Brüggberg during the last three years proves it, and he will not be your only pensioner."