"Like a rock in an avalanche, I, pressed on all sides, have got frozen into the midst of the most frightful speculations ever devised by a usurer's brain. My departed uncle was good enough to make me heir to his favorite branch of business—land speculations.
"I put off involving myself with its details as long as I could, and left the charge of that part of my inheritance to Westlock. As this was cowardly, I found an excuse for it in the quantity of work the money-matters of the deceased afforded me. At last there was no help for it; I had to undertake the responsibility. And if before I had had a pretty good guess at the elasticity of whatever it was that served my uncle instead of a conscience, it now became beyond a doubt that the purpose of his will and testament was to punish my juvenile offenses against him by making me a companion of old weather-beaten villains, whose cunning was such that Satan himself would have had to put his tail into his pocket, and become chimney-sweep in order to escape them.
"This letter is written from a new town in Tennessee, a cheerful place—no better, though, for being built on speculation with my money: a few wooden cottages, half of them taverns, filled to the roof with a dirty and outcast emigrant rabble, half of whom are lying ill with putrid fever.
"Those who are still moving about are a hollow-eyed, anxious-looking set, all candidates for death. Daily, when the poor wretches look at the rising sun, or are unreasonable enough to feel a want of something to eat and drink—daily, from morn to eve, their favorite occupation is to curse the land-shark who took their money from them for transport, land, and improvements, and brought them into this district, which is under water two months in the year, and for the ten others more like a tough kind of pap than any thing else. Now the men who have pointed out to them this dirty way into heaven are no other than my agents and colleagues, so that I, Fritz Fink, am the lucky man upon whom every imprecation there is in German and Irish falls all the day long. I send off all who are able to walk about, and have to feed the inhabitants of my hospital with Indian corn and Peruvian bark. As I write this, three naked little Paddies are creeping about my floor, their mother having so far forgotten her duty as to leave them behind her, and I enjoy the privilege of washing and combing the frog-like little abominations. A pleasant occupation for my father's son! I don't know how long I shall have to stick here; probably till the very last of the set is dead.
"Meanwhile I have fallen out with my partners in New York. I have had the privilege of rousing universal dissatisfaction; the shareholders of the Great Western Landed Company Association have met, made speeches, and passed resolutions against me. I should not much care for that if I saw a way of getting clear of the whole affair. But the deceased has managed so cleverly that I am tied down like a nigger in a slave-ship. Immense sums have been embarked in this atrocious speculation. If I make known its nature, I am sure that they will find a way of making me pay the whole sum at which my late uncle put down his name; and how to do that without ruining not myself alone, but probably also the firm of Fink and Becker, I can't yet see.
"Meantime I don't want to hear your opinion as to what I ought to do. It can be of no use to me, for I know it already. Indeed, I wish for no letter at all from you, you simple old-fashioned Tony, who believe that to act uprightly is as easy a thing as to eat a slice of bread and butter; for, as soon as I have done all I can, buried some, fed others, and offended my colleagues as much as possible, I shall go for a few months to the far southwest, to some noble prairie, where one may find alligators, and horned owls, and something more aristocratic than there is here. If the prairie afford pen and ink, I shall write to you again. If this letter be the last you ever get from me, devote a tear to my memory, and say, in your benevolent way, 'I am sorry for him: he was not without his good points.'"
Then came a precise description of Fink's affairs, and of the statutes of the association.
Having read this unsatisfactory letter, Anton sat down at once and spent the night in writing to his friend.
Even in the common light of the next day our hero retained his feelings of the night before. Whether he worked at his desk or jested with his friends, he felt conscious how deeply his life was footed in the walls of the old house. The rest saw it too. Besides other marks of favor, Anton often spent the evenings with the principal and the ladies. These were happy hours to Sabine. She rejoiced to find, as they discussed the events of the day, a book read, or some matter of feeling and experience, how much agreement there was between her views and Anton's. His culture, his judgment surprised her; she suddenly saw him invested with glowing colors, just as the traveler gazes in amazement at some fair landscape, which heavy clouds have long hidden from his view.
His colleagues, too, took his peculiar position very pleasantly. They had heard from the principal's own lips that Anton had saved his life, and that enabled even Mr. Pix to look upon the frequent invitations he received without note or comment. Anton, too, did his part toward keeping up the good feeling of the counting-house. He often asked them all to his room, and Jordan complained, with a smile, that his parties were now quite forgotten. His favorite companion was Baumann, who had had an increase of missionary zeal during the last half year, and only been kept back by finding that an experienced calculator could ill be spared at the present crisis. Specht, too, was a special candidate for his favor, Anton's travels and adventures having invested him with a romantic halo in the former's fantastic mind.