"Just so," said the porter; "I will bring them down to the carriage. The rest I must give you in promissory notes. These are worth a little less than a hundred dollars, as of course you know."
"It does not signify," said Eugene.
"No," said the giant. "It can be mentioned in the note of hand. And now the matter is all settled." He closed the chest, and pushed it under the bed.
Eugene re-entered the little parlor with a lightened heart.
"Now, then, I will carry the money to the carriage," cried Sturm.
"The note of hand has yet to be written."
"True," nodded the giant; "we must do things in order. Just see, sir, whether you can write with my coarse pen. If I had known that I should have such a visitor, I would have brought a better one with me from Mr. Schröter's."
Eugene wrote out an acknowledgment, while Sturm sat by his can of beer, and looked at him in admiration. Then he accompanied him to the carriage, and said at leave-taking, "Greet my little lad heartily, and Mr. Wohlfart too. I have promised Karl to come to him at Christmas, on account of the Christmas-tree; but my health is no longer as good as it should be. I am forty-nine past."
A short time afterward, Eugene, writing to Anton, casually mentioned that he had borrowed nineteen hundred dollars from father Sturm on a note of hand. "Try to arrange the matter for me," said the letter; "of course my father must know nothing of it. A good-hearted, foolish fellow, that old Sturm. Think of something nice for his son the hussar—something that I can bring him when I pay you a visit."
Anton flung down the letter indignantly. "There is no helping them; the principal was right," said he. "He has squandered the money in golden bracelets for a mercenary danseuse, or at dice with his lawless comrades, and he now pays his usurer's bills with the hard earnings of an honest working-man."