To-day, he was telling Salchen, with great enjoyment, about an uncommonly stupid man, for whom he had promised a rich wife, and how on every journey to see the lady, he had plucked from the poor cock now a wing-feather, and now a tail-feather, until the last journey found him thoroughly stripped. "Extremely interesting," said Salchen, just as Pomuchelskopp entered the room. "Ah! Delighted to see you, Herr Notary! Good day, Herr David!" Salchen would have gone on laughing, but Father Pomuchelskopp motioned with his hand toward the door, so she gathered up her plums, chickens, geese and pigs, and saying, "Come, Nanting and Philipping, father has business to attend to," she went out with them. "Herr Pomuchelskopp," said David, "I came about the hides, and I wanted to ask about the wool. I got a letter----" "Eh, what? wool and hides!" cried the notary. "You can talk about those afterward. We came for this particular business that you know about." One may observe that the notary was a cunning business man, who could dispense with preliminaries, he took the bull by the horns, and that was what Pomuchelskopp liked,--he knew how to pull up nettles. He went up to the notary, shook his hand, and motioned him to the sofa. "Yes," said he, "it is a difficult, far-reaching piece of business." "Hm? Well, we can make it long or short, as you like. But difficult? I have managed much harder case's. David has a bill for two thousand five hundred; I myself lent him last quarter eight hundred and thirty. Would you like the note? Here it is." "It is good paper," said Pomuchelskopp, gently and composedly, and he stood up and took the money for it out of his pocket. "Will you have mine too?" asked David. "I will take yours also," said Pomuchelskopp, nodding his head with dignity, as if he were doing a great work for humanity. "But, gentlemen," he added, "I take them on this condition. Make out a bill, in my name, that you are indebted to me for the amount, and keep these notes and worry him with them. He must be only worried, for if we carry it too far he will get the money somewhere else, and the right time hasn't come yet." "Yes," said the notary, "we understand; we can manage the business; but David has something else to tell you." "Yes," said David, "I have a letter from P----, when he has been with his regiment, from Marcus Seelig, who writes me that he can buy up about two thousand dollars of the lieutenant's paper, and if you would like--what do you say?" "Hm?" said Pomuchelskopp, "it is a good deal to take at one time; but--yes, you may get it for me." "But I have a condition, too," said David. "You must sell me the wool." "Well, why not?" said Slusuhr, slily treading on Pomuchelskopp's toes. "Let him go and look at it."