of noise, and all were agreed that for years past there had not been such a ludicrous scene as this. As a matter of fact, this crazy free show was so much to the taste of the whole town that nobody took the trouble to point out to the two rivals their ultimate goal, the house of their old master. They themselves, these two, did not see it. Indeed, they did not see anything more. They reached their goal and did not perceive it, but went past and hurried crazily on, on and on, always escorted by the shouts and yells of the mob, fighting each other, their faces drawn and pinched as though in death, on and on, until they reached the other end of the little town and so through the second gate out into the open once more. The master himself had stood at the window of his house, laughing and greatly amused, and after patiently waiting for another hour for the victor in the strange tournament, he had been on the point of leaving the house and joining some of his cronies at the tavern, when Zues and Dietrich quietly and unobtrusively entered. For Zues had meanwhile been busy with her thoughts, combining, after her wont, this and that. And thus she had reached the conclusion that in all likelihood the master combmaker would be willing to sell his business outright on a cash basis, since he could not continue it himself much longer. For that purpose Zues herself was ready to give up her interest-bearing mortgage, which together with the slender savings of Dietrich would doubtless suffice and thus they two would remain victors and could laugh at the other two. This plan, together with their intention to marry, they told the astonished master about, and he, readily seeing that thus he could cheat his creditors and by concluding the bargain quickly would also get possession of a considerable sum of money to do with as he pleased, was glad of the opportunity thus afforded him. Quickly, therefore, the two parties were in agreement as to the terms, and before the sun went down Zues became the lawful owner of the business and her promised husband the tenant of the house in which the business was being conducted. Thus it was Zues, without indeed having intended or suspected it in the morning, who was tied down and conquered by the quickwitted Suabian.