Thereupon the trader, thinking to make himself agreeable, tried to say something fitting. "If only it is a boy, to carry on your name, Stephen Fausch ..." The smith muttered something to himself, which his companion could not understand. "The first child! What a pleasure it will be to you," the trader went on eagerly. "It isn't mine," said Stephen Fausch gruffly. With his one eye he glared at the man, so that his words stuck in his throat. Only then did the rumor that he had heard occur to Hallheimer:--the rumor that the smith's wife had been over-intimate with her husband's brother. At the top of the stone steps of the house there now appeared a woman who looked very stout, because she wore so many petticoats. With an important and mysterious look, she nodded to the smith. "It has come, Stephen Fausch. You have a boy. I--wish you joy!" she called out. Since the smith behaved as if he saw and heard nothing, her embarrassment increased; she went dejectedly back into the house. Stephen laid down the file with which he had been scraping the horse's hoof, and slowly turned to the trader. "Did you hear what the mid-wife said?" he asked. Moritz Hallheimer felt in his pocket and took out a little goldpiece. "You must make the child a present at the christening," said he, offering the goldpiece to the smith. But Stephen would not notice the trader's hand. The eager little old man was quite out of countenance. He laid the goldpiece on the window-sill of the workshop. "Take it to the child, Fausch, take it," he begged in his embarrassment. The horse was now shod, and Stephen led it back to the wagon and tied it there. Suddenly he raised his great dark head. "Do you know what the boy's name is going to be?" he asked, and his face had the same stubborn look that it had worn when he told the vegetable woman to wait. It seemed as if his square forehead projected still more and even his nose had a more obstinate and uncompromising look. "He is going to have a queer name, the boy," he went on. He was uncommonly talkative, though he spoke slowly and with difficulty: "A strange name. He is to be called Cain." As he said this, he came out from behind the wagon and approached Hallheimer, looking at him with a grim laugh. "What--what's that you say?" stammered the little man. The smith nodded. "Yes, yes," he said. "You can't mean that," said the other. He got into his wagon, took his place on the seat and repeated: "You don't mean that, Fausch." "He is going to be called Cain," said Stephen indifferently, without raising his voice. But his manner seemed to say: "Move me if you can." The trader looked for some money, to pay for the work, and handed it down to the smith. "They'll refuse to name the child that," said he. "They'll have to," answered Stephen. "Did you pick up anything among the Italians this time?" he asked. And without ceremony he reached in under the oilcloth cover that was spread over the trader's wagon.