"I will tell you something, Frank, joking aside," he continued. "You must marry. And I advise you in this matter not to lay so much stress on your ideal; pass over for once the sylph-like forms, liquid eyes and sweet faces in favor of another advantage which nothing will supply the place of, in our prosaic age. Don't bring me a poor girl, Frank, though she were a very pearl of women. In your position it would be perfect folly, a sin against yourself and all who come after you. It won't make the least difference if your fine verses don't exactly fit her. You wouldn't always be making poetry, even to the loveliest woman. O yes, laugh away!"
He brushed the ashes from his cigar. "In Frankfort--if you had only chosen--you might have done something. But you were quite dazzled by that little Thea's lovely eyes. How often I have raged about it! When a man has passed his twenty-fifth year he really ought to be more sensible."
Frank Linden was obstinately silent, and the little man knew at once that he had as he used to say, "put his foot in it."
"Come, Frank, don't be cross," he continued, "perhaps there are rich girls to be had here too."
"O to be sure, sir, to be sure," sounded behind him, "rich girls and pretty girls; our old city has always been celebrated for them."
"Both gentlemen turned toward the speaker."
Both gentlemen turned toward the speaker; the judge only to turn away at once with an angry shrug, Frank Linden to greet him politely.
"I have brought the papers you wanted," continued the new-comer, a little man over fifty with an incredibly small pointed face over which a sweet smile played, a sanctimonious man in every motion and gesture.
"I am much obliged, Mr. Wolff," said Frank Linden, taking the papers.