I went for two years to a business-house in North Germany; then I came here to learn office-work, through which discipline they hope to tame me. So here I am now in a cloister. But it's all in vain. I humor my father by sitting here, but I shall only stay long enough to convince him that I am right, and then I shall take to agriculture." "Will you buy land in this country?" inquired Anton. "Not I," returned Fink; "I prefer riding half the day without coming to the end of my property." "Then you mean to return to America?" "There or elsewhere. I am not particular as to hemisphere. Meanwhile, I live like a monk, as you see," said Fink, laughing, as he mixed for himself a fiery potion, and pushed the bottle to Anton. "Brew for yourself, my lad," said he; "and let us chat away merrily, as becomes good fellows and reconciled foes." From that evening forth Fink treated our hero with a friendship that he showed to none of the other clerks. He often took him into his room, and even went up the long staircase to his. Anton soon discovered that his new friend was a well-known character in the town--a perfect despot among the fashionables, and the leader of all riding and hunting parties given. Accordingly, he was much in society, and often did not come home till morning. Anton could not help admiring the strength and energy of this man, who could take his place at the desk after only two or three hours' sleep without showing a trace of fatigue. Fink also departed from the rigid regularity of the house by sometimes appearing after office-hours had begun, or leaving before they ended. Of this, however, Mr. Schroeter took no notice. Thus the winter passed away, and signs of spring penetrated even here. The visitors no longer brought in snow-flakes, but left brown footmarks. The brokers began to speak of the yellow blossoms of the olive, and at length Mr. Braun came in with a rose in his button-hole. A year was gone since Anton crossed the little lake with the fleet of swans behind him. The whole year through he had thought of that one day. CHAPTER VIII. Veitel Itzig still occupied the same sleeping-quarters as on the evening of his arrival. If, according to the assertions of the police, every man must have some home or other--and, according to popular opinion, our home be where our bed stands--Veitel was remarkably little at his home. Whenever he could slip away from Ehrenthal's, he would wander about the streets, and watch for such youths as were likely to buy from or sell to him. He had always a few dollars to rattle in his pocket. He never addressed the rawest of schoolboys but as a grown-up man; he was a proficient in the art of bowing, could brighten up old brass and silver as good as new, was always ready to buy old black coats, and possessed the skill of giving them a degree of gloss which insured their selling again.