market-place ....."--"Who?" interrupted a stupid little girl, who did not quite understand,--"Hush!" cried they all.--"Well, as I was saying, he went right across the market-place, and I recognised him at once, for he had bought a new suit of clothes from my husband some time before, it was a black surtout and blue trousers--bother! what was I saying--I meant a blue surtout and black trousers; I see him now as distinctly as I did then, he always used to wear yellow leather breeches and top-boots--or was it Fred Triddelfitz who did so? I really can't quite remember. What _was_ I going to say?"--"He went right across the market-place," cried three voices at once.--"To be sure! He went right across the market-place and turned into the street where the town-clerk lives, I was calling on the town-clerk's wife at the time, for she wanted to show me the new curtains she had bought from the Jew Hirsch--oh, I remember now, it was from the Jew Bär, who was declared bankrupt the other day, that she got them. It's a very odd thing, but my husband tells me that all our Jews become bankrupt now and then, after which they are richer than ever, so that a Christian merchant has no chance against those rascally Jews. But where was I?"--"He turned into the street where the town-clerk lives."--"Oh of course! The town-clerk's wife and I were standing at the window and so we could see right into Mrs. Behrens' parlour, and my friend was just telling me that her husband had told her that if Mrs. Behrens would only go to law--no, not Mrs. Behrens--the church, or the consistory or something, Mr. Pomuchelskopp would be obliged to build a new parsonage at Gürlitz, and my friend ....." But the town-clerk's wife was dying to tell the story herself, and in asking Mrs. Krummhorn to do it, she had laid a nice little rod in pickle for her own back, she could stand it no longer and said: "He went straight into Mrs. Behrens' house, and without waiting in the hall, ran right upstairs into the parlour. The old lady started up from the sofa when she saw him, and made violent signs to him to keep away from her. She looked as miserable as if some great evil had come upon her, as perhaps it may. Then she set a chair for him and signed to him to sit down, but he wouldn't do it, and when Mrs. Behrens left the room, he began to walk up and down just like--like ....."--"Why," interrupted Mrs. Krummhorn, "you said such a pretty verse about it this afternoon."--"Ah well, 'The lion is the king of the desert when he goeth through his domain.' He walked up and down like a king of the desert, and when the old bailiff came into the room with his daughter, he went up to him and reproached him bitterly."--"But," interrupted the same stupid little member of the council as before, "you don't mean to say that you heard all that was said?"--"No, my love," replied the town-clerk's wife, laughing at the member's stupidity, "we didn't _hear_ what was said, but Mrs. Krummhorn