As Hawermann could not see the force of this reasoning, he remained silent, and the conversation on the way back was not so easy as before; but when they had nearly reached the house--right in front of the door, and as if he had been preparing for this last step--the lieutenant stopped the bailiff, and said with a deep sigh, and as if lifting a heavy burden from his breast: "Hawermann, I have long wished to have a little private talk with you.--Hawermann, I'm in debt--you must help me.--I owe a hundred and thirty-five pounds, and I _must_ have the money."--That was a bad proposal to make to Hawermann; but in really serious matters the bailiff used the influence of his age, he looked the young man of three and twenty full in the face, and said: "I can't help you in this, Mr. von Rambow."--"Hawermann, dear Hawermann, I'm desperately in want of the money."--"Then you ought to speak to your father."--"To my father? No, no! he has already paid so much for me, and now he is ill, it might do him harm."--"Still you should tell him. Such things as this ought never to be discussed with strangers, they should always be arranged between father and son."--"Strangers?" asked Alick, looking at him reproachfully. "Do you really look upon me as such a complete stranger, Hawermann!"--"No, Mr. von Rambow, no," exclaimed Hawermann, seizing his young master's hand, "you are no stranger to me. And I will do anything for you that I possibly can. This matter is in itself a mere nothing, and if I could not manage it alone, my friend Bräsig would make up the rest; but, dear Mr. von Rambow, your father is your natural helper, and it would be wrong to pass him over."--"I can't tell my father," said Alick, plucking the leaves off a willow-tree near him.--"You _must_ tell him," cried Hawermann as emphatically as he could, "he feels that you are concealing some of your debts from him, and that pains him."--"Has he spoken to you about it?"--"Yes," replied Hawermann, "but only in connection with his own great need of money which you already know about."--"I know," said Alick, "and I also know the source from which my father received assistance.--Well, I can do what my father did before me," he added coldly and shortly as he entered the house.--"Mr. von Rambow," cried Hawermann, following him hastily, "don't do that, for Heaven's sake, you won't succeed, and you'll only be in a more unpleasant position than before."--Alick would not listen to him.