me, can you?" I asked.

At that she made the same old light-blue eyes of innocence, and said very softly and sentimentally:

"You're the best, the noblest man in the world. I could love you--I could idolise you, but----"

"But?"

"Oh, it's all so hideous--so impure. Just say you don't want me--just throw me over--I don't deserve anything better."

I felt as if the earth were going round in a circle. I had to summon my last remnant of reason not to clasp the lovely, passionate creature in my arms and hold her to my breast. And with that last remnant of reason I said:

"Far be it from me, dear child, to turn the excitement of this moment to my profit. You might regret it to-morrow when it would be too late. I will wait a week. Think it all over in that time. If by the end of the week you have not written to take back your word, I will consider the matter settled, and I will come over to ask your father and mother for your hand. But think everything over carefully, so that you don't plunge yourself into unhappiness."

She caught hold of my hand--this awful, pudgy, horny, brown hand, gentlemen--and before I could prevent her, she kissed it.

It was not till much, much later that the meaning of that kiss was to become clear to me.

Scarcely had we crawled out of the arbour when we heard the old gentleman screaming from a distance:

"Is it possible? Hanckel--my friend Hanckel here? Why didn't you wake me up, you scurvy blackguards, you? My friend Hanckel here, and I snoring--you dogs!"

Iolanthe turned scarlet. And I, to relieve the painful situation, said:

"Never mind, I know him."

Yes, gentlemen, I knew the old fellow, but I did not know his daughter.

CHAPTER IV

So that was the pass we had come to. On the drive home I kept repeating to myself:

"Hanckel, what a lucky dog you are! Such a treasure at your time of life! Dance for joy, shout aloud, carry on like a crazy man. The events of the day call for it."

But, gentlemen, I did not dance for joy, I did not shout aloud, I did not carry on like a crazy man. I looked over my bills and drank a glass of punch. That was the extent of my celebration.

The next day Lothar Pütz came riding up in his light-blue fatigue uniform.

"Still holding on to your commission, my boy?" I asked.

"My resignation has not yet gone into effect," he answered, looking at me grimly, but avoiding my eyes, as if I were the cause of all his trouble. "At any rate, my leave has expired. I have to go to Berlin."

I asked if he could not get an extension. But I noticed he did not want it--was suffering with homesickness for the club. We all know what that is. Besides, he had to sell his furniture, he explained, and arrange with the creditors.

"Well, then, go, my boy," I said, and hesitated an instant whether I should confide my new joy to him. But I was afraid of the silly face I'd make while confessing, so I refrained. Another thing that kept me was a feeling stowed away deep down at the bottom of my heart--I was counting on a rejection. I feared it, and I hoped for it, too.

The feeling was something like--but what's the use of delving into feelings? The facts will tell the story.

Exactly a week later in the morning the postman brought me an envelope addressed in her handwriting.

At first I was dreadfully afraid. Tears sprang into my eyes. And I said to myself:

"There, old man, now you've been relegated to the scrap heap."

At the same time a peaceful renunciation came over me, and while opening the envelope I almost wished I might find in it just a plain mitten.

But what I read was:

"Dear Friend:--

I have thought the matter over, as you wished. I am confirmed in my decision. I shall expect to see you to-day when you call on my father.

Iolanthe."

Happy! Well, of course, I was happy--at such a moment--it goes without saying. But, then, how ashamed I was. Yes, gentlemen, ashamed, ashamed to face a soul. And when I thought of all the dubious, sarcastic looks that people would soon be casting at me, I felt I'd rather back out of the business.

But the hour had come. Up and be doing.

First I beautified myself. I cut my chin twice shaving. One of the stable-boys had to ride two miles to the chemist's to get me some flesh-coloured court-plaster. My waistcoat was drawn in so tight I could scarcely breathe, and my poor old sister nearly went wild trying to give my necktie that careless, free-and-easy look I wanted.

And all the time I kept thinking and thinking--it never left me for an instant:

"Hanckel, Hanckel, you're making an ass of yourself."

But my entry into Krakowitz was grand--two dapper greys of my own breeding--silver collar trimmings--a new landau lined with wine-coloured satin. No prince in the world could have come a-wooing more proudly.

But my heart was thumping at my ribs in abject cowardice.

The old man received me at the door. He behaved as if he hadn't the faintest suspicion of what was doing.

When I asked him for a talk in private, he looked surprised and made a face, like a man scenting a "touch" from an unexpected quarter.

"You'll soon be pulling in your sails," I thought. I naturally supposed that at the first word there would be an excellently acted emotional scene--kisses, tears of joy, and the rest of the rigmarole.

That's how vain it makes you, gentlemen, to possess a wide purse.

But the old fox knew how to drive a bargain. He knew you had to run down the prospective purchaser in order to run up the price of your goods.

After I proposed for his daughter's hand, he said, all puffed up with suddenly acquired dignity:

"I beg pardon, Baron, but who will guarantee that this alliance, which--revolve the matter as you will--has something unnatural about it--who will guarantee that it will turn out happy? Who will guarantee that two years from now my daughter won't come running back home some night, bareheaded, in her nightgown, and say, 'Father, I can't live with that old man. Let me stay here with you'?"

Gentlemen, that was tough.

"And in view of all these circumstances," he continued, "I am not justified as an honourable man and father in entrusting my daughter to you----"

Very well, rejected, made a fool of. I rose, since the affair seemed to me to be ended. But he hastily pressed me back into my seat.

"Or, at least, in entrusting her to you and observing the forms that I feel a man like me owes a man like you, or to express myself more clearly--by which a father endeavours to assure his daughter's future--or, to express myself still more clearly--the dowry----"

At that I burst out laughing.

The old sharper, the old sharper! It was the dowry he had been sneaking up to! That was what the whole comedy had been about.

When he saw me laugh, he sent his dignity and his pathos and his feeling of pride to the devil and laughed heartily along with me.

"Well, if that's the way you are, old fellow," he said, "had I known it right away----"

And with that the bargain was struck.