"The sheriff is never allowed to levy on instruments of trade," said Hummel, making a stroke through that entry in the ledger. "I believe, indeed, that they are unreadable stuff, but the world has many dark corners; and as you have a fancy to be an anomalous dick among your fellows, you shall remain in your hole." He regarded the Doctor with an ironical twinkle in his eye. "Have you nothing further to say? I do not mean with reference to your father's business, I have nothing further to do with that, but upon another subject, which you yourself seem to carry on; from your movements of late you evidently wish to associate yourself with my daughter Laura?"
The Doctor colored. "I should have chosen another day for the declaration which you now demand of me. But it is my anxious wish to come to an understanding with you concerning it. I have long entertained a secret hope that time would lessen your aversion to me."
"Time?" interrupted Hummel; "that's absurd."
"Now by the noble assistance which you have extended to my father, I am placed in a position towards you which is so painful to me that I must beg of you not to refuse me your sympathy. With strenuous exertion and fortunate circumstances it would now be years before I could acquire a position to maintain a wife."
"Starving trade," interposed Mr. Hummel, in a grumbling tone.
"I love your daughter and I cannot sacrifice this feeling. But I have lost the prospect of offering her a future which could in some measure answer to what she is entitled to expect; and the helping hand which you have extended to my father makes me so dependent on you that I must avoid what would excite your displeasure. Therefore I see a desolate future before me."
"Exactly as I prophesied," replied Mr. Hummel, "wretched and weak."
The Doctor drew back, but at the same time he laid his hand on his neighbor's arm. "This manner of language will serve you no longer, Mr. Hummel," said he smiling.
"Noble, but abject," repeated Hummel with satisfaction. "You should be ashamed, sir; do you pretend to be a lover? You wish to know how to please my daughter Laura, such an evasive, forlorn specimen as you? Will you regulate your feelings according to my mortgage? If you are in love, I expect that you should conduct yourself like a rampant lion, jealous and fierce. Bah, sir! you are a beautiful Adonis to me, or whatever else that fellow Nicodemus was called."
"Mr. Hummel, I ask for your daughter's hand," cried the Doctor.