“You see, I am a trusted clerk in your esteemed uncle’s bank,” he said when they had reached Grosse Bleichenstrasse and, lowering his voice, he added, “but as a side line I sell lottery tickets. S—sh! Your esteemed uncle warned me not to sell any tickets to anyone in his employ or to any of the bank’s customers.” “There is honor among thieves—hey? Only one robbery at a time,” Albert struck in. Aaron suddenly let the valise drop to the pavement, and, with his hands at his sides, burst into convulsive laughter. “That’s a good one—I must tell it to your esteemed uncle.” Then reverting to a more serious tone he said cautiously, “I sold your father the very first lottery ticket he ever purchased—ask him if I tell you a lie. And he came within three numbers of the Grand Prize. Just think of it—within three numbers! If the man drawing the lottery had just moved his hand a tiny bit further down—just a wee, wee bit—your father would have been the recipient of two hundred thousand marks! And do you think I’d have asked your father for a single _pfennig_ for having been his good angel—no, no, not a _pfennig_, not a _groschen_, not even a thank-you! No, my child, not Aaron Hirsch! I wouldn’t have asked your good father for a pinch of snuff.” But they were soon inside, Aaron introducing the young man to Widow Rodbertus as the nephew of the “great banker” and Madame Rodbertus to Albert as the kindest soul that ever drew breath. III. When he found himself in his room free from Aaron’s chatter he grew sad again, the sadness of disappointment gripped him. Not a word of welcome from his uncle. And that fat pompous man in the bank—he had puffed and sputtered like a porpoise—that man called him a boy!—had not even introduced himself or said a friendly word to him! The thought burned in his brain; his heart was filled with bitterness. He was received like a poor relation—He! Albert Zorn, who was soon to make the world talk of him as they were now talking of Byron! Ah! that haughty man in the bank had looked at him as if he were an errand boy! He, Albert Zorn, with scores of lyrics in his valise and the first draft of a tragedy that would vie with Schiller’s “Wallenstein”, with “Childe Harold”! That red-faced, pompous man, proud of his purse—a mere money-bag! Huh! “That boy with the valise at the door”! He paced up and down the room and finally paused before the window overlooking the garden. The garden of Aaron’s vision was a little courtyard with a pine tree in the center, encircled by meagre little shrubs. For a moment he stood gazing upon the lonely tree absently. Aside from the few stunted shrubs around it there was not a shade of green in sight. He soon felt a kinship with the tree. It was symbolical—like the fir tree before him he stood alone on the barren heights of the north, wrapt in a white coverlet of ice and snow, and dreaming of a palm tree in distant sunny lands . . .