"Few in your sense of the word," answered Anton, indignantly. "I can love those who please me, and can, I believe, be a true friend; I can also resent insolence."
"Very well," said Fink, "I am quite aware of that. I know there is plenty of spirit in you. Now let me hear what fate has hurled you into this dreary tread-mill, where all must at last go dusty and resigned, like Liebold, or, at best, punctual and precise, like Jordan."
"It was a kind fate, after all," replied Anton, and began to tell the story of his life.
Fink kept nodding approvingly, and then said, "After all, the greatest difference between us is that you remember your mother, and I do not mine. I have known people who found less love in their home than you have done."
"You have seen so much of the world," pleaded Anton; "pray let me hear how you chanced to come here."
"Very simply," began Fink; "I have an uncle at New York, one of the aristocrats of the Exchange. When I was fourteen, he wrote to my father to send me over, as he meant to make me his heir. My father was a thorough merchant. I was packed up and sent across. In New York I soon became an accomplished scapegrace, was up to every species of folly, and kept race-horses at an age when German boys eat bread and butter, and play with tops in the streets. I had my favorite danseuses and cantatrices, and so bullied my servants, both white and black, that my uncle had enough to do to bribe them into taking it quietly. My friends had torn me from my home without consulting my feelings, and I did not care a straw for theirs. In short, I was the most renowned of the young scamps who pique themselves upon their devilry on the other side the water. It was on one of my birth-days that, returning home from a certain petit souper, the thought suddenly struck me that this career must come to an end, or it would end me. So I went to the harbor instead of to my uncle's house, and having, on my way, bought a coarse sailor's dress and put it on, I hired myself to an English captain. We sailed round Cape Horn, and when we reached Valparaiso I thanked the Englishman for my passage, treated the crew, and jumped on shore with twenty doubloons in my pocket, to make my fortune by the strength of my arm. I soon fell in with an intelligent man, who took me to his hacienda, where I won my laurels as herdsman. I was about half a year with him, and liked the life. I was treated as a useful guest, and much admired as sportsman and horseman. What did I need further? We were just going to have a great buffalo hunt, when suddenly two soldiers made their appearance on the scene, and trotted me off with them to the town, where I was made over to the American consul; and as my uncle had moved heaven and earth to track me, and as I found, from a long letter he had written, that my father was really unhappy, I resolved to return to Europe by the next ship. I at once told my father that I did not mean to be a merchant, but an agriculturist. At this the firm of Fink and Becker went distracted; but I stood to my point. At last we came to a compromise. I went for two years to a business-house in North Germany; then I came here to learn office-work, through which discipline they hope to tame me. So here I am now in a cloister. But it's all in vain. I humor my father by sitting here, but I shall only stay long enough to convince him that I am right, and then I shall take to agriculture."
"Will you buy land in this country?" inquired Anton.
"Not I," returned Fink; "I prefer riding half the day without coming to the end of my property."
"Then you mean to return to America?"
"There or elsewhere. I am not particular as to hemisphere. Meanwhile, I live like a monk, as you see," said Fink, laughing, as he mixed for himself a fiery potion, and pushed the bottle to Anton. "Brew for yourself, my lad," said he; "and let us chat away merrily, as becomes good fellows and reconciled foes."