"Good morning, Mr. bailiff Wilbrandt!"--"Good morning, old friend, come and have some breakfast"--"Good morning, father Hellwig!"--"Don't bother me, I'm in a bad humour."--"Why, what's the matter?"--"A great deal's the matter. My rent has almost doubled itself, and Zirzow has done its part this year, and so here I am with £3000 that I don't know how to invest. The Rostock bank won't take in any more money, so what's to be done? Ah, Wilbrandt, it's a bad world!"--"Yes, it's a bad world," replied the bailiff; and I also said: "Very bad," without for a moment remembering the large sum of money I shall have to invest next term.--"Yes," continued Wilbrandt, "who the devil thought of mortgages in the old days?"--"True," said father Hellwig, "nobody thought of such things then. Look you, when I went to old Solomon in Stemhagen[1], and told him I wanted to borrow some money from him, he said to me: 'Hellwig,' he said, 'you have an honest face, it is marked with small-pox--but there's no harm in that--you shall have the money.' And then I had to spend one night in his house, and sleep in the same room as he did. Now I have a bad habit of smoking myself to sleep, and so I always take a freshly lit pipe to bed with me, and as Solomon was very nervous about fire, he kept continually calling to me: 'Hellwig, are you still smoking?' Ah, those were good old times!"--"Yes," said the bailiff, "and how we used to rejoice when we had paid off the last farthing of our small debts! The happiest part of my life passed away with my last debts. Those were good old times."--"No," said I, "they were bad old times. You managed to keep afloat in spite of hardships and difficulties, and therefore you are worthy of all honour and respect, but many other honest men couldn't do so, try as they might."--Then Mr. X Y Z, a land-owner in the neighbourhood, came up, and striking the table so hard with his walking-stick that all the bottles danced, said: "Those who didn't get the better of their difficulties weren't worth their salt."--"What," cried the bailiff, "have you got to say to that?"--Then father Hellwig rose, and looking at him with his honest old face, said: "You are a young man, and have inherited your estate from your ancestors. You hav'n't the faintest idea of the misery of those times.--You know all about it, old friend," he added, turning to me, "so tell us about what happened then."--"Yes," I answered, "I will tell the story of those old days." AN OLD STORY UT MINE STROMTID. CHAPTER I.