"We can't get around yet," cried the dancing children.
Raschke looked up. "Then I will sit upon the chair."
That was satisfactory to the children, and the noisy hubbub continued.
"Come here, Bertha," said Raschke; "you may act as my desk." He laid the book on her head whilst he read and wrote; and the little one stood as still as a mouse under the book, and scolded the others because they made a noise.
There was a knock; the Doctor entered.
"Ha, Fritz!" called out the Professor; "I hardly recognized you; I must try to recall your face. Is it right to set your friends aside in this way, when a friendly greeting might do you good? Laura has told me what has happened to your dear father. A heavy loss," he continued, sorrowfully: "if I am not mistaken, two hundred thousand."
"Just one cipher too much."
"It matters little," replied Raschke, "what the loss is, compared with the sorrow it occasions. I should have been with you, Fritz, at that time. I started immediately, but a circumstance interfered with my intention," he added, embarrassed. "I have long been accustomed to go to your street in the evening, and--well--I got to the wrong house, and with difficulty found my way back to the lecture."
"Do not pity me," replied the Doctor; "rejoice with me--I am a happy man. I have just now found, what I despaired of obtaining, Laura's heart and the consent of her father."
Raschke clapped the Doctor on the shoulder, and pressed first one hand, then the other. "The father's!" he exclaimed; "he was the hindrance. I know something of him, and I know his dog. If I may judge of the man by his dog," he continued, doubtingly, "he must be a character. Is it not so, my friend?"