For the Heimlicher came on the stage again, with his plea of demurrer to Siebenkæs's suit, in which all he demanded was justice and equity--in other words, the money which was in question, unless Siebenkæs could prove himself to be himself, that is to say, the ward, whose patrimony the Heimlicher had hitherto kept in his paternal hands and purse. This juridical Hell-river took Firmian's breath away and struck ice-cold to his heart, though he had jumped over the three previous petitions for postponement as easily as the crowned lion over the three rivers in the Gotha coat-of-arms. The wounds which we receive from Fate soon heal, but those inflicted by the blunt and rusty torture-implement of an unjust man suppurate and take long to close. This cut, made into nerves already laid bare by so many a rude clutch and sharp tongue, caused our dear friend some severe pain; yet he had seen that the cut was coming long before it came, and had cried to his spirit, "Look out--mind your head!" Alas! there is something _new_ in _every_ pain. He had even taken legal steps in anticipation of it. A few weeks before he had had evidence sent from Leipsic, where he had studied, to prove that he had formerly been known by the name of Leibgeber, and was, consequently, Blaise's ward. A young notary there, of the name of Giegold, an old college friend and literary brother in arms, had done him the service of seeing all the people who had known of his Leibgeberhood--particularly a rusty, musty old tutor, who had often been present when the guardian's register-ships came in--and a postman, who had piloted them into port, and his landlord and other well-informed persons, who all took the Jus credulitalis (or oath of conviction), and whose evidence the young lawyer forwarded to Siebenkæs (like a mountain full of precious ore); he had no great difficulty, to speak of, in paying the postage of it, as he was king of the marksmen. With this stout club of evidence he resisted and withstood his guardian and robber. When Blaise's denial was lodged, the timid Lenette gave herself and the suit up for lost; poverty, lean and bare, seemed in _her_ eyes now to enmesh them in a network of parasite ivy, and there was no other prospect for them but to perish and fall to the ground. Her first proceeding was to burst into loud abuse of Von Meyern; for as he had himself told her that his father-in-law's three applications for delay had been the result of _his_ intercession, which he had made for her sake alone, she looked upon Blaise's plea of demurrer as being the first thorn-sucker sent forth by Rosa's revengeful soul in return for the imprisonment and the sacking he had undergone in Firmian's house (and half ascribed to her), and for what he had lost.