"Is the mare well again?"
"No," said Habermann, "she is still sick, I think it would be best to send for the horse doctor."
"I will give orders. But," he added, sitting down, and still gazing stiffly out of the window, "that comes from there being no proper supervision of the stables, from feeding the spoiled musty hay."
"Herr von Rambow, you know, yourself, that the hay got wet, this summer, but it isn't musty. And you yourself undertook the oversight of the blood-horses, for, a few weeks ago, when I had ordered a slight alteration in the stable, you forbade it, with hard words, and said you would take the horses under your own supervision."
"Very well! very well!" exclaimed Axel, leaving the window, and walking up and down the room, "we know all that, it is the old story."
Suddenly he stopped before Habermann, and looked him in the face, though a little unsteadily: "You are going to-day?"
"Yes," said Habermann, "according to our last arrangement----"
"I am not really obliged," interrupted the young Herr, "to let you go before Easter; you must at least stay till the day after New-Year's."
"That is true," said Habermann, "but--"
"Oh, it is all the same," said Axel, "but we must settle our accounts first. Go and get your books."