"Oh, how stupid you are!" and the notary laughed in his face. "Did you ever hear of a young man in pecuniary difficulties making a clean breast of it to an old friend like Habermann? I take it, the lieutenant is not different from the rest of the world. No, Habermann may stay at Pumpelhagen, for all that; but yet, if it is possible, we must get him away. He is too good a steward, and, if he manages Pumpelhagen as well as he has so far, the lieutenant can afford to keep us waiting a good while yet." "He a good manager! He didn't manage very well for himself." "Well, let him go! One mustn't undervalue things. But he must go." "Yes, but how can we bring it about?" "I can't do anything," laughed the notary, "but you--when you get the Herr Lieutenant with the bright dollars under his eyes, it will be easy to get an old, worn-out inspector turned off. The devil is in it, if you can't." "Yes, yes," cried Pomuchelskopp, in a tone of annoyance; "but all that takes so long, and my wife is so impatient." "She will have to wait," said the notary, very quietly, "such things are not done precipitately. Only think how long Pumpelhagen has been in the Rambow family; the change cannot take place in a hurry. But now, stop! David is coming; not a word of this before David! Do you understand? Say nothing to him but about his money affairs." As David entered the room, he saw a couple of remarkably jolly faces. Pomuchelskopp was laughing as if the Herr Notary had made an uncommonly witty remark, and the Herr Notary laughed, as if Pomuchelskopp had been telling the best joke in the world. But David was not so stupid as he appeared at the moment; he knew very well that he had been made an April fool of; and that his two colleagues had been discussing something beside jokes. "They have their secrets," said he to himself; "I have mine." He sat down by the table, with the stupidest Jew-lubber face, and nodding to Pomuchelskopp said, "I have looked at it." "Well?" inquired Pomuchelskopp. "Well," said David, shrugging his shoulders, "you say it has been washed, and it may have been washed, for all I know." "What! Don't you believe me? Do you mean to say it isn't white as swan's-down?" "Well, if it is swan's-down it may be swan's-down for all me." "What are you driving at?" "Look here! We got a letter from Löwenthal in Hamburg; the great Löwenthal house in Hamburg--the stone is fourteen dollars and a half." "I know all that; you are always writing about that nonsense." "A house like the Löwenthals doesn't write about nonsense." "Eh, children," interrupted the notary, "this isn't business, this looks like a quarrel. Pomuchelskopp, let us have a couple of bottles of wine."