Vendel-gazda replied by a pitiful gaze at Hanzli. He would have clasped his hands too, but only the tips of his fingers could reach each other. He looked as if he would have said: "My poor lad, Hanzli, you too have a bad job of it now-a-days; in Mistress Nani's lifetime, the key of the cellar lived in your pocket, and you were not then obliged to empty my tankard."
The two countrymen were used to this silent language. They might have conversed in their own tongue, to be sure. But then, who knows—in short, there are cases—and Vendel and Hanzli were of this opinion—in which least said is soonest mended.
And now Master Vendel's head began to wave very disastrously; his whole appearance was one large, living, fat complaint. It was like that feeling which a man experiences when he knows that there is something the matter with him, something seriously wrong, but cannot exactly tell what it is.
"Hanzli, my lad!" he exclaimed at last, in a very weak voice, after they had exhausted their telegraphic repartee; "Hanzli, tell me what is the matter with you."
Hanzli raised both his shoulders to his ears, extending the palms of his hands outwards, and lifted his eyebrows to the top of his forehead—implying by this gesture that he knew very well what was the matter with him, but was wise enough to keep it to himself.
"Hm!" replied Vendel, and was again silent. He would not force the lad to speak—an excellent policy, if intentional; for when words are not forced, they force themselves. Hanzli by degrees shambled up nearer his master, and after fidgeting about, coughing, and standing on one leg, he suddenly turned round, placed his finger on the side of his nose, and stooping to a level with Vendel's ear, whispered into it:
"Indeed, indeed, master, the misfortune is this, and this alone,—that you have no heir."
"What have I not, Hanzli?"
"That you have no son or daughter."
At these words Vendel's eye opened wide, and he struck the table with a force which sent the four-quart tankard dancing about as if the tartar were in it; then, holding up his enormous face, he began to look out of himself. An entirely new idea seemed to thrill through him, as if he had just been assured that perpetual motion had not yet been discovered, and that he was the man to discover it.