I murmured something which she probably took for acquiescence, for she gave me a friendly smile, and hastened into the house, from which resounded the shrill voice of the _gnädige_, who with the whole power of her lungs--which were evidently in a healthy state--was calling out of the window to the steuerrath, who was standing in the rear of the garden among the yellowing leaves on the sunny espalier, and eating one of the few peaches which the superintendent's unwearying care had won from the ungenial climate. With long strides, betokening no good to the steuerrath, I walked up the path directly to him. "Ah!" said he, without desisting from his occupation, "my wife has sent you, I suppose. But see for yourself if there is another decent peach on the whole espalier. And the trash is anyhow as sour as vinegar." "Then you should not have eaten it." "Well, at all events it is better than nothing; an official on a pension learns that lesson." "Really!" I accompanied this explanation with a contemptuous laugh, which rudely startled the steuerrath from the delusion that he was delighting me with his genial conversation. He looked at me with the expression of a dog who is undecided whether to fly from his enemy or seize him by the leg. "Herr Steuerrath," I said, "I have a request to make of you." His indecision was at an end in a moment. "At any other time I will listen to you with pleasure," said he; "but at this moment I am rather hurried----" And he tried to pass me, but I barred his way. "I can tell you in three words what I have to say: you must leave this place." "I must--what?" "Leave this place," I repeated, and I felt the angry blood mounting to my cheeks--"and that at once; in three days at the furthest." "Young man, I believe you have lost your senses," replied the steuerrath, making an effort to assume a dignified look, which his lips, pale with apprehension, woefully belied. "Do you know to whom you are speaking?" "Give yourself no trouble," I said, contemptuously. "The times in which you appeared to me I don't know what awe-inspiring wonder, are long past. I have no further respect for you, not the slightest; and I will not have you stay here any longer; do you hear? I will not have it!" "But this is unheard-of!" cried the steuerrath. "I will tell my brother what insults I am exposed to here." "If you did that, I would----"