One day Jason Philip was stopped on the street by a well-known cabinet-maker and asked whether he had any old furniture for sale. Jason Philip replied that he was not at all familiar with the contents of the attic and sent him to Theresa. Theresa recalled that there was an old desk up in the attic that had been standing there for years. She suggested that they might be willing to dispose of this for a few taler, and accompanied the man to the room where the worn-out furniture was stored.
She opened the little wooden door. The cabinet-maker caught sight at once of the desk. It had only three legs and was just about ready to fall to pieces. “I can’t make you an offer for that,” said the cabinet-maker, and began to rap on it here and there, somewhat as a physician might sound a corpse. “The most I can offer you is twelve groschen.”
They haggled for a while, and finally agreed on sixteen. The man left at once, having promised to send one of his men up in the afternoon to get the desk. Theresa was already standing on the steps, when it occurred to her that it might be well to go through the drawers before letting the thing get out of the house: there might be some old documents in them. She went back up in the attic.
In the dust of one of the drawers she found, sure enough, a bundle of papers, and among them the receipt which Gottfried Nothafft had sent back to Jason Philip ten years before. She read in the indistinct light the confidential words of the deceased. She saw that Jason Philip had received three thousand taler.
After she had read this, she crumpled up the paper. Then she put it into her apron pocket and screamed out: “Be gone, Gottfried, be gone!”
She went down stairs into the kitchen. There she took her place by the table and stirred a mixture of flour and eggs, as completely absent-minded as it is possible for one to become who spends her time in that part of the house. Rieke, the maid, became so alarmed at her behaviour that she made the sign of the cross.
VI
When the midday meal was over, the children left the table and prepared to go to school. Jason Philip lighted a cigar, and took the newspaper from his pocket.
“Did you find anything for the second-hand furniture man?” he asked, as he puffed away.
“I found something for him and something for myself,” she said.