"We?" chuckled the old man. "You will be done, you jackdaw. What are your affairs to me?"
"Two hundred," cried Veitel, drawing nearer.
"Three," replied the old man, tossing off his glass; "but even then I will not do it alone; you must be there."
"If I am to be there," said Veitel, "I can do it alone, and shall not require your help. Listen to me. I will contrive that the office shall be empty; that Ehrenthal and the baron shall leave the house at the same moment. I will give you a sign, to say whether the papers are on the table or in the press. It will be dark. You will have about half an hour's time. I will fasten the house door, and unbolt the back door, which is generally closed. It will all be so safe that a child of two years might do it easily."
"Safe enough for you," said the old man, dryly, "but not for me."
"We have tried what could be done with the law, and it has not answered," cried Veitel; "now we must defy it." He struck the balustrade with his clenched fist, and ground his teeth fiercely. "And if you don't choose to do it, still it shall be done, though I know that all the suspicion will fall upon me, unless I am in Bernhard's room at the time."
"Very fine indeed, gallant Itzig," said the man, adjusting his spectacles, so as to observe more closely the expression of the other's countenance. "Since you are so brave, I will not leave you in the lurch. But three hundred."
The bargaining then began. The pair squeezed themselves into the farthest corner of the gallery, and whispered together till dark.
A few days later, at twilight, Anton entered his friend's sick-room. "I am come to pay you a flying visit, just to see how you are."
"Weak," replied Bernhard; "still very weak, and breathing becomes very difficult. If I could only get out, only once out of this gloomy room."