Zachariah Bräsig was very cross when he found he had gout, and in his ignorance declared that it was the new fashion of wearing brightly polished boots, and the cold damp spring they had been having which had given him gout, whereas he ought to have set it down to good eating and to his daily little glass kümmel. He was as troublesome as a gad-fly, and whenever Hawermann went to see him when the pain was bad, he used to find him studying the papers the Count had given him relating to marriage and a pension, and then he was always as cross as two sticks. "Don't you see," he would say, "what a horrible position the Count's paper puts me in. If I marry, my lord, the Count, will say that I am too young for the pension and if I ask for the pension, I acknowledge by so doing that I am too old to marry. Oh yes, the Count's not much better than a Jesuit. He speaks me fair, and gets the better of me. He writes down all sorts of scoundrelly padagraphs on a bit of paper which prevent a man, who for the last eight-and-twenty years has worn himself out in his service, enjoying his pension without blame; a man who was engaged to three women twenty years ago, and who, now that he is fifty cannot marry even _one_ woman.--Oh, I laugh at my lord's padagraphs!" One man's meat is another man's poison! Bräsig was angry because the cord had been pulled, but in young Joseph's home it had brought about a pleasant change. In the old days, Mrs. Nüssler had tried in vain to bring peace into the house, now it reigned there, and ruled the actions of the whole family. Mrs. Nüssler was careful to keep it there now that it had come; and the twins showed its gentle influence in their ways and thoughts, and young Joseph also felt the change and tried to do his duty as head of the family. It is true that he spoke as little as ever, and still disliked smoking any tobacco except twist, and it is true that he had not even yet grown out of tutelage, for after his parents' death Hawermann and Bräsig had undertaken the guardianship of all out-door affairs, had arranged about the work, had seen that the farm was properly stocked, and had got everything in order. As the old people had forgotten to take away with them the money they had hidden under pillows, in old stockings, and in odd corners, it was easy to make everything go on smoothly and well, and when at last the whole place was in good order, young Joseph said: "What am I to do now?" and left everything to go its own way. But the comfort and peace in which he now lived had made him much more cheerful, and his kindness of heart, which had never been allowed free play by his parents, was patent to all, and if it sometimes made him do foolish things, it mattered no more than did the schoolmaster's appearing at a funeral in a red waistcoat, for, as he said in excuse: "What does it signify, Reverend Sir, when one's heart is black?"