This was a great joy to Habermann; nothing more was said of board or tuition money, for he could now discharge a small portion of the great debt which he owed to the Pastor and his wife.
So Fritz Triddelsitz came, and in such a way! He was his dear mother's only son,--to be sure she had a couple of daughters,--and she fitted him out for his new place, so that he could represent an apprentice, a travelling agent, an inspector, or a farmer and landlord, according to the occasion, or as the whim took him to play at farming, in this manner or that. He had dress-boots and working boots, laced boots and top-boots; he had morning shoes, and dancing shoes, and fancy slippers; he had button-gaiters, and riding-gaiters, and other gaiters; he had dress-coats, and linen frocks, and cloth coats and pilot-coats; overcoats and under-jackets, and rain-coats, and a variety of long and short trousers, too numerous to mention.
This outfit for a gentleman farmer arrived at Pumpelhagen one fine day, in several large boxes, with a fine, soft bed, and a great clumsy secretary; and the carrier volunteered the news that the young gentleman would soon be there, he was on the way, and was merely detained by a struggle with his father's old chestnut horse, who would come no further than the Gurlitz parsonage, because that had been the limit of his journeys hitherto. How the contest terminated he did not see, because he came away; but the young gentleman was coming. And he came, and as I said before, in what a guise! Like an inspector over two large estates belonging to a count, and who has the privilege of riding to the hounds with his gracious Herr Count, in a green hunting-jacket, and white leather breeches, top-boots with yellow tops, and spurs, and over the whole a water-proof coat, not because it was likely to rain, but it was new, and he wanted to hear what people would say about it. And he came upon his father's old chestnut, and, from the appearance of both, it was evident that their present relations were the result of a contest. The horse had come to a stand in the middle of the great puddle before the Pastor's house, with a fixed determination to go no further, and Fritz had exercised him for a good ten minutes with whip and spur, to the great dismay of the little Frau Pastorin, before he could persuade him to advance; so when he dismounted at Pumpelhagen, his rain-coat looked as if he had been pelted with mud.
The old chestnut stood before the house, and he pricked up his ears, and said to himself, "Is he a fool, or am I? I am seventeen years old, and he is seventeen years old. He has had his way this time, next time I will have mine. If he treats me so with whip and spur and kicks, next time I will lie down in the puddle."
When Fritz Triddelsitz came into the room where Habermann, and young Herr von Rambow, and Marie Möller, the housekeeper, were sitting at dinner, the old inspector was struck dumb with astonishment, for he had never seen him before. In his green hunting-jacket, Fritz looked like one of those long asparagus stalks which spring up in the garden, and he was so thin and slender that he looked as if one could cut him in two with his riding-whip. He had high cheek bones and a freckled face, and something so assured, and yet awkward in his whole demeanor, that Habermann said to himself, "God bless me! am I to teach him? He feels above me already."
His reflections were interrupted by a burst of laughter from Franz von Rambow, in which Marie Möller secretly joined, holding her napkin before her mouth.
Fritz had begun, "Good-day, Herr Inspector, how do you do?" when he was interrupted by the laughter; he saw his old schoolmate at Parchen, shaking with fun; he looked at him rather doubtfully? but it was not long before he joined in the laugh himself, and then steady old Habermann could refrain no longer, he laughed till his eyes ran over. "Man!" said Franz, "how you have rigged yourself up!"
"Always noble!" said Fritz, and Marie Möller disappeared again behind her napkin.
"Come, Triddelsitz," said Habermann, "sit down to dinner,"
Fritz accepted the invitation--the fellow was in luck, for he had come at the best season for good living, in the roast-goose season, and as it happened, a fine, brown bird stood before him, and this beginning of his study of farming might well be agreeable. He was not at all sparing of the roast goose, and Habermann reflected silently that if he sat on horseback as well as at table, paid as much attention to farm-boys as to roast goose, knew as much about horses' fodder as of his own, and cleared up business as completely as he did his plate, something might be made of him in time.