A couple of hours later, lieutenant von Rambow was standing amongst the wool-sacks and sheep-skins in the Jew's house, where David found his amusement amongst the articles of his trade, and he seemed to be making a despairing last appeal to Moses, who kept determined hold of his purse-strings. "Really and truly, my lord Baron, I can't do it. And why not? Can't I make by it? Can't I make a good deal by it?--Look you, my lord Baron, there is David--David, what are you doing? What are you looking at? Come here, David.--Look you, my lord Baron, here he is standing before you and me, I won't give him the least sign, but will go quietly into the next room, and then you can ask David." And with that he walked right shoulder first into the next room.
Poor Alick's affairs must have been in a bad way before he would have had anything to do with such a person as David, for if he in his grand new uniform looked fit to draw the king's carriage, David's outer man was so shabby and ill-conditioned that he was worthy of nothing better than dragging a scavenger's cart. But in this sort of business appearance is nothing, the chief thing is to know how to act in any emergency, and David was quite up to the mark there. He had three qualities that stood him in very good stead; firstly, he had the incomparably sly, sharp expression and features of the Jewish usurer, and as he stood before lieutenant von Rambow, chewing a bit of cinnamon stalk he had taken from his mother's store-closet, as a remedy against the close woolly smell of the warehouse, and gazing at him with his head bent a little sideways, and one hand in his pocket, he looked as impudent as if the ghosts of all the rats that had died in the house, during all the years that he had carried on the wool-trade there, had entered into him: secondly, he knew himself to be a far harder and more unyielding man of business than his father, for having had so much to do with wool, skins, &c., which are known to be difficult things to deal with, had taught him much: and thirdly, he was quite up to the most approved method of drawing on, or holding off, a customer, and this he had also learnt in the wool-trade.
Naturally Alick could make nothing of such a highly gifted individual, and very soon turned to go away with a heavy heart. David was so pleased with the way in which he had conducted the case in hand, that he began to compassionate the young man, and felt inclined to give him a little friendly counsel, so he advised him to apply to attorney Slus'uhr, "for he has the money, and he will arrange matters for you."
Lieutenant von Rambow had scarcely closed the door when Moses rushed in, and exclaimed: "David, have you any conscience?--I'll tell you something, you have none!--How could you send the lad to such a cut-throat?"--"I have only sent him to his own people," replied David maliciously. "He's a soldier, so he's a cut-throat too. And even supposing that the attorney does cut his throat, what's that to you? And if he cuts the attorney's throat, what's that to me?"--"David," said the old man, shaking his head, "I tell you again, you have no conscience."--"What is conscience?" growled David. "When you are doing business you send me away, and when you won't do business you call me."--"David," said his father, "you are too young," and with that he went into his room again.--"Am I too young?" muttered David between his teeth. "Am I always to be too young? Well, I know a place where I am not too young." Then he changed his coat, and set out in the same direction as he had sent the lieutenant, to the house of attorney Slus'uhr.
I do not know what he had to do there, but I know this, that young Mr. von Rambow had to write a good many letters that evening when he got back to Pümpelhagen, and that he sent a cheque in each of them, and that when they were all finished he gave a deep sigh as if he had got rid of a heavy burden. He did not know that although he had weathered the first storm, he had acted like the old woman who heated the yeast in her baking trough.
CHAPTER V.
About ten o'clock in the morning, a few days later, the sun was peeping down on the garden of Gürlitz manor-house from behind a cloud. Her daughter, the earth, had been having a great washing-day, and she wanted to give her beloved child a little help with the drying of the clothes. There is nothing more delightful than to see old mother sun looking down sympathetically, her broad kindly old face showing between the white sheets of cloud, and to see her seizing her watering-can now and then to sprinkle the linen. At such times she is always in high spirits, and, in spite of her old age and experience, is as changeable in her humour as a young girl who is in love for the first time. One moment she is sad and tearful, and the next laughing and joyous.
The old lady laughed heartily as she looked down on the garden at Gürlitz. "Well," she cried, scattering her golden laughter over plants and bushes, "one sees queer things sometimes in this stupid old world! A neat white figure used to stand there, which by my help enabled those poor hungry children of men to know the exact time to eat their dinner, and now a fat, awkward looking fellow has taken its place, he has green-checked trousers on, and there is a pipe in his mouth. Nothing is done so foolishly anywhere else as in the world!" And with that she laughed merrily over the new squire, Mr. Pomuchelskopp, who was standing like a sun-dial, dressed in a yellow nankin-coat, and green-checked trousers, in the same place where the graceful heathen god Apollo used to be, except that while the god had a lyre in his hand, he was provided with a short pipe. The sun's face clouded over now and then when she saw her old friend, who, for so many years, had noted her doings faithfully, lying neglected among the rankgrass and nettles.--And then she began to laugh again.
Pomuchelskopp laughed too. There was no smile to be seen on his face, but when stretching himself up as high as his short stature would allow, he gazed around him, his heart rejoiced and cried: "It is all mine! All mine!" He did not see the sun-beams which gilded the earth, these made no impression on him; but the sun-beam within him, which was caused by nothing better than pounds, shillings, and pence, lighted up his heart, though it did not show in his face. Before an expression of amusement could be seen there something very humorous must take place, and matter to call it forth was not wanting.
His two youngest children, Tony and Phil, had come out into the garden, and Phil had made himself a rod of docken and nettle-stalks, with which he beat the statue of the fallen god, and that made father Pomuchelskopp laugh most heartily, and Tony ran into the kitchen and got a bit of charcoal, and was just going to give him a moustache, when his father stopped him, and said: "Tony, don't do that, you may spoil it, and perhaps we may sell it, Tony. But you may thrash it as much as you like."--And so they beat the statue with their stinging rods, and father Pomuchelskopp laughed till he shook in his green-checked trousers.