"What are you saying there about deceit?" cried Ehrenthal, indignantly; "have a care that no stranger hear your words. I have left my money standing with you; what interest can I have in lowering you and increasing your difficulties? I myself am only too deeply involved in them," and he pointed to the place occupied in most men by a heart. "Had I known that your factory would devour my good money, one thousand after another, even as the lean kine of Egypt devoured the fat, I should have taken more time to consider, and would not have paid you a single dollar. A herd of elephants will I feed with my substance, but never more a factory. How then can you say that I have deceived you?" continued he, in increasing dudgeon.
"You have known the state of matters," cried the baron, "and have disguised the count's position from me."
"Was it I who sold you the mortgage?" inquired the offended Ehrenthal. "I have paid you the interest half-yearly—that is my offense; I have paid you much money besides—that is my deceit." He then continued more conciliatingly: "Look at the matter calmly, baron: another creditor has offered to purchase the estate; the lawyers have not apprised us of it, or they have sent the advertisement to a wrong address. What of that? You will now be paid your capital, and then you can pay off the mortgages on your own land. I hear that this estate in Poland is a very valuable one, so you have nothing to fear for your capital."
The baron had only to depart with this uncertain hope. As he dejectedly entered his carriage, he called out to the coachman, "To the Councilor Horn;" but on the way thither he gave counter orders, and returned to his lodgings. A coolness had sprung up between him and his former legal adviser; he shrunk from disclosing to him his never-ceasing embarrassments, and had been offended by Horn's well-meant warnings. He had often, therefore, applied for advice to other lawyers.
Itzig, in the tenderness of his heart, had rushed out of the office as soon as he beheld the baron's horses, but now he put in his head again.
"How was he?" he inquired from Ehrenthal.
"How should he be?" answered Ehrenthal, ungraciously; "he was in a great taking, and I had good cause to be angry. I have buried my gold in his property, and I have as many cares about that property as I have hairs on my head—all because I followed your advice."
"If you think that the ancestral inheritance of the baron is to come swimming toward you like a fish with the stream, and that you have only to reach out your hand and take it, I am sorry for you," replied Itzig, spitefully.
"What am I doing with the factory?" cried Ehrenthal. "The land would have been worth twice as much to me without the chimney."
"When once you have got the chimney you can sell the bricks," was Itzig's ironical rejoinder. "I wanted to tell you that I expect a visit to-morrow from an acquaintance out of my own district; I can not, therefore, come to the office."