"What good will your treasure do you, wretched boy?" "But I have it, mother," said the Magister, looking up at the hard-featured woman; and his winking eyes glistened brightly. "To-day I have read some proof-sheets in which a man of note maintains that this volume which I hold here has never existed. He wishes the 'never existed' to be printed in italics, and I have so marked it for the compositor, though I know better." "Are you coming?" called out the mother angrily. "Stop your work. Your beer is getting flat." The Magister rose unwillingly, slipped out of the room with his felt shoes, and seating himself at the table helped himself to the scanty fare before him and without further ado began to eat. "Mother," he said to the woman, who was watching his rapid meal, "I have some money remaining; if you want anything, buy it; but I will know how you spend it, and I will see that my brother does not again borrow anything from you, for it has been earned by hard work." "Your brother will now pay all back, for Hahn has improved his position, and he has a good salary." "That is not true," replied the Magister, looking sharply at his mother. "He has become too stylish to dwell with us now; but whenever he comes he always wants something of you, and you have always loved him more than me." "Do not say so, my son," cried Mrs. Knips. "He is quite different; you are always industrious, quiet, and collected, and even as a small boy you began to save." "I have obtained for myself what was dear to me," said the Magister, looking toward his room, "and I have found much." "Ah, but what hardships you suffer for it, my poor child!" said the mother flatteringly. "I take things as they come," answered the Magister, making a cheerful grimace. "I read proof-sheets, and I do much work for these learned men, who drive in carriages like people of distinction, and when I come to them they treat me like a Roman slave. No man knows how often I correct their stupid blunders, and the bad errors in their Latin. But I do not do it for all--only for those who have deserved well of me. I let the mistakes of the others remain, and I shrug my shoulders secretly at their empty heads. All is not gold that glitters," he said, holding his thin beer complacently up to the light, "and I alone know many things. I am always correcting their miserable manuscripts, but do not correct their worst errors. I see how they torment themselves and the little they do know they pilfer from other books. One sees that every day, mother, and one laughs in secret at the course of the world." And Magister Knips laughed at the world. _CHAPTER XVII_. THE DECEPTION OF MR. HUMMEL.