"The next day the lady's letter, which I carefully put back in the nook of the steps, was gone, and the following Saturday brought another tender epistle from the gentle Theodore, who this time, however, was any thing but gentle; for he vowed implacable hatred to his obnoxious rival, and devoted him to destruction if he persisted in his persecution of Jacqueline. Then there were fresh protestations of love, eternal fidelity, and the like, but nothing new of great importance. The correspondence continued in pretty much the same strain for several weeks, during which I regularly read the letters, and returned them to the clandestine post-office. At last I grew weary of the thing, and thought of putting a stop to it, but could not hit upon a way of doing so, and at the same time of sufficiently revenging myself, unless by a communication to Herr Schraube, which plan did not altogether satisfy me. Whilst I thus hesitated, Jacqueline, in one of her letters, after detailing, for her lover's amusement, some awkward absurdities of which Loffel had been guilty, made mention of me. "'I never told you,' she wrote, 'of the presumption of one of my father's clerks; a raw-boned monster, with a face like a Calmuck, who, because he writes bad verses, and is here as a sort of gentleman-volunteer, thought himself permitted to make me, his master's daughter, the object of his particular regards. I must confess, that when I perceived him smitten, I was wicked enough to amuse myself a little at his expense, occasionally bestowing a word or smile which raised him to the seventh heaven, and were sure to produce, within the twenty-four hours, a string of limping couplets, intended to praise my beauty and express his adoration, but, in reality, as deficient in meaning as they were faulty in metre. At last, one day, towards the commencement of my acquaintance with you, dearest Theodore, he detected me childishly engaged in writing your beloved initials in my breath upon the window. His initials happen to be the same as yours, (thank heaven, it is the only point of resemblance between you,) and it afterwards occurred to me he was perhaps misled by the coincidence. In no other way, at least, could I explain the fellow's assurance, when, two days afterwards, he plumped himself down upon his knees, and, sighing like the bellows of a forge, declared himself determined to adore me till the last day of his life, or some still more remote period. You may imagine my answer. I promise you he left off pestering me with bad rhymes; and from that day has scarcely dared raise his eyes higher than my shoe-tie.'