Petrowitsch sent his maid to Ibrahim, to say that he could not join him, to play their usual game, for an hour; then he sat down beside the Doctor, and said: "I feel myself today in a humour to be communicative. I care nothing at all for what the world thinks of me; this log of wood that I am now laying on the fire, cannot care less who burns it." "It would interest me very much, however, if you would relate to me how you have hardened into such a block of petrified wood." Petrowitsch laughed, and the Doctor, though he knew how anxiously Lenz was expecting him, hoped, by seeing deeper into the rugged old man's character, to be able to bend him to his wishes. His plan was, that Petrowitsch should advance a certain sum, to enable Lenz to enter the manufactory as a junior partner. "You were eight years old when I left home to travel," began Petrowitsch, "and so you know nothing of me." "Oh, yes, I do! many wild pranks were related of the----" "The little Goatherd? That name has been the plague of my life. I was two and twenty years in foreign parts, at sea and on land, in every possible degree of heat and cold that man or dog ever endured, and that name followed me like a dog, and I was fool enough not to give it a kick, and so get rid of it for ever. "We were three brothers, and had no sisters. Our father was a proud man when we three came, but in those days children were not so kindly treated as now, and I think it was better; it made us independent, and a single word, good or bad, made more impression than a hundred now. My brother Lorenz, who was called by our family name Lenz at home, the father of the present Lenz, was the eldest, and I the youngest. Our second brother, Mathes, was a very handsome young man; he was carried off by that great butcher of mankind, Napoleon, and was killed in Spain. I have been on the battlefield where he fell. There is a high hill, and a mass of soldiers lie buried there, so what chance of finding out a brother among them! But what's the use of telling you that? Not long after Mathes had become a soldier, my brother Lenz went to Switzerland for a few months, and took me with him. Who so happy as I? My brother was a quiet, thoughtful man; every one must admit that. He was like a first-rate clock--exact and punctual,--but stern, very stern. I was a wild, unruly lad, good for nothing, nor had I any notion of sitting in a workshop. What did my brother do? He took me to a fair for hiring servants at St. Gall, which took place every year. The great Swiss farmers hire their shepherd lads from Swabia. "As I was standing beside my brother in the marketplace, a stout, bluff Appenzel farmer came up, and stood opposite us, his feet well apart, leaning on a stick, and said to my brother, 'What is the price of the lad?' "I gave the saucy answer, 'A log of Swiss impudence, six feet broad, and six feet high.'