A ROMANCE OF TOMPKINS SQUARE. 

By Thomas A. Janvier

Copyright, 1891, by Harper & Brothers

Whether the honey shall be brought to the boiling-point slowly orrapidly; whether it shall boil a long time or a short time; when and inwhat quantities the flour shall be added; how long the kneading shalllast; in what size of earthen pot the dough shall be stored, and whatmanner of cover upon these pots best preserves the dough against theassaults of damp and mould; whether the pots shall be half-buried in thecool earth of the cellar or ranged on shelves to be freely exposedto the cool cellar air--all these several matters are enshrouded in amystery that is penetrated only by the elect few of Nürnberg bakers bywhom perfect lebkuchen is made. And the same is true of the Brunswickbakers, who call this rare compound honigkuchen, and of the makers ofpferfferkuchen, as it is called by the bakers of Saxony. 

Nor does the mystery end here. This first stage in the making oflebkuchen is but means to an end, and for the compassing of thatend--the blending and the baking of the finished and perfecthoney-cake--each master-baker has his own especial recipe, that has comedown to him from some ancestral baker of rare parts, or that by his owninborn genius has been directly inspired. And so, whether the toothsomeresult be Nürnberger lebkuchen, or Brunsscheiger peppernotte, or Baslerleckerly, the making of it is a mystery from first to last. 

It was because of this mystery that the life of Gottlieb Brekel had beenimbittered for nearly twenty years--ever since, in fact, his first essayin the compounding of Nürnberger lebkuchen had been made. He was but ayoung baker then: now he was an old one, and notwithstanding the guardedpraise of friends and the partial approval of the public (notably ofthat portion of the public under the age of ten years that attended St. Bridget's Parochial School) he full well knew that his efforts throughall these years to make, in New York, lebkuchen such as he himself hadeaten when he was a boy, at home in Nürnberg, had been neither more norless than a long series of failures. 

In the hopeful days of his apprenticeship all had seemed so easy beforehim. Let him but have a little shop, and then a little capital wherewithto lay in his supply of honey, and the thing would be done! He hadno recipe, it is true; for he was a baker not by heredity, but byselection. Yet from a wise old baker he had gleaned the knowledge ofhoney-cake making, and he believed strongly that from the pure fount ofhis own genius he could draw a formula for the making of lebkuchenso excellent that compared with it all other lebkuchen would seemtasteless. But these were the bright dreams of youth, which age hadrefused to realize. 

In course of time the little shop became an accomplished fact; a verylittle shop it was in East Fourth Street. Capital came more slowly, andthree several times, when a sum almost sufficient had been saved, wasit diverted from its destined purpose of buying the honey without whichGottlieb could not make even a beginning in his triumphal lebkuchencareer. 

His first accumulation was swept away through the conquest of Ambitionby Love. In this case Love was personified in one Minna Schaus--who wasnot by any means a typical sturdy German lass, with laughing looks andstalwart ways, but a daintily-finished, golden-haired maiden, with softblue eyes full of tenderness, and a gentleness of manner that Gottliebthought--and with more reason than lovers sometimes think things of thissort--was very like the manner of an angel. And for love of her Gottliebforgot for a while his high resolves in regard to lebkuchen making;and on the altar of his affections--in part to pay for his modestwedding-feast, in part to pay for the modest outfit for theirhousekeeping over the bakery--the money laid aside for the filling ofhis honey-pots very willingly was offered up. 

A second time were his honey-pots sacrificed, that the coming intothe world of the little Minna might be made smooth. This, also, was awilling sacrifice; though in his heart of hearts Gottlieb felt a twingeof regret that his first-born was not a son, to whom the fame andfortune incident to the making of perfect lebkuchen might descend. But he was a philosopher in his way, and did not suffer himself to beseriously disconcerted by an accident that by no means was irreparable. As he smoked his long pipe that night, while the bread was baking, he said to himself, cheerily: "It is a girl. Yes, that is easy. Girlssprout everywhere; they are like grass. But a boy, and a boy who is togrow up into such a baker as my boy will be--ah, that is another matter. But patience, Gottlieb; all in good time. " Then, when his third pipe wasfinished--which was his measure of time for the baking--he fetched outthe sweet-smelling hot bread from the oven with his long peel, and setforth upon his round of delivery. And he whistled a mellow old Nürnbergair as he pushed his cart through the streets before him that frostymorning, and in his heart he thanked the good God who had sent himthe blessings of a dear wife and a sweet little daughter and a growingtrade. 

And yet once more were his honey-pots sacrificed, and this time thesacrifice was sad indeed. From the day that the little Minna came intothe world his own Minna, as in a little while was but too plain tohim, began to make ready to leave it. As the weeks went by, the littlestrength that at first had come to her was lost again; the faint colorfaded from her cheeks, and left them so wan that through the fair skinthe blue veins showed in most delicate tracery; and as her dear eyesever grew gentler and more loving, the light slowly went out from them. So within the year the end came. In that great sorrow Gottlieb forgothis ambition, and cared not, when the bills were paid, that hishoney-pots still remained unfilled. For the care of his home and oflittle Minna his good sister Hedwig came to him. Very drearily, for along while, the work of the bakery went on. 

But a strong man, stirred by a strong purpose, does not relinquishthat purpose lightly; and the one redeeming feature of the life of manysorrows which in this world we all are condemned to live is that eventhe bitterest sorrow is softened by time. But for this partial reliefour race no doubt would have been extinguished ages ago in a madnesswrought of grief and rage. 

Gottlieb's strong purpose was to make the best lebkuchen that baker everbaked. After a fashion his sorrow healed, as the flesh heals about abullet that has gone too deep to be extracted by the surgeon's craft, and while it was with him always, and not seldom sent through all hisbeing thrills of pain, he bore it hidden from the world, and wentabout his work again. Working comforted him. The baking of bread is anemployment that is at once soothing and sustaining. As a man kneads thespongy dough he has good exercise and wholesome time for thought. While the baking goes on he may smoke and meditate. The smell of thenewly-baked bread is a pleasant smell, and brings with it pleasantthoughts of many people well nourished in the eating of it. Moreover, there is no time in the whole twenty-four hours when a city is soinnocent, so like the quiet honest country-side, as that time in thecrisp morning when a baker goes his rounds. 

As Gottlieb found himself refreshed and strengthened by these manifoldgood influences of his gentle trade, his burden of sorrow was softenedto him and made easier to bear. Comforting thoughts of the littleMinna--growing to be a fine little lass now--stole in upon him, andwithin him the hope arose that she would grow to be like the dear motherwhom she never had known. So the little fine roots of a new love struckdown into his sad heart; and presently the sweet plant of love beganto grow for him again, casting its delicate tendrils strongly about thechild, who truly was a part of the being about which his earlier andstronger love had clung. Yet the love that thus was re-established inGottlieb's breast was far from filling it, and so for ambition there wasample room. 

[Illustration: Sat beside the oven smoking his second pipe 204]

Somewhat to his surprise, one night, as he sat beside the oven smokinghis second pipe, he found himself thinking once more about his projectfor making such lebkuchen as never yet had been known outside ofNürnberg--lebkuchen that would make him at once the admiration andthe despair of every German baker in New York. Nor was there, as heperceived as he turned the matter over in his mind, any reason now whyhe should not set about making this project a reality; for he had moneyenough, and more than enough, in store to buy the honey that he had solong desired. His eyes sparkled; he forgot to smoke; and when he turnedagain, half unconsciously, to his pipe, it had gone out. This rousedhim. The brightness faded from his eyes; he drew a long sigh. Then helighted his pipe again, and until the baking was ended his thoughts nolonger were busied with ambitious schemes for the making of lebkuchen, but went back with a sad tenderness to the happy time that had come soquickly to so cruel an end. 

But the spark was kindled, and presently the fire burned. When he toldthe good Hedwig that he had bought the honey at last, that excellentwoman--albeit not much given to display of the tender emotions--shedtears of joy. She was a sturdy, thick-waisted, stout-ankled person, thisAunt Hedwig, with a cheery red face, and prodigiously fine white teeth, and very bright black eyes; and her taste in dress was such that whenof a Sunday she went to the Church of the Redemptorist Fathers, in ThirdStreet, she was more brilliant than ever King Solomon was in all hisglory, in her startling array of vivid reds and greens and blues. Butbeneath her violent exterior of energetic color she had a warm andfaithful heart, as little Minna knew already, and as her brotherGottlieb had known for many a long good year. Therefore was Gottlieb nowgladdened by her hearty show of sympathy; and he returned with a goodwill the sounding smack that she gave him with her red lips, and thestrong hug that she gave him with her stout arms. 

It was at sight of this pleasing manifestation of affection that HerrSohnstein, the notary--who was present in the little room back of theshop where it occurred--at once declared that he meant to buy some honeytoo. And Aunt Hedwig, smiling so generously as to show every one of herfine white teeth, promptly told him that he had better be off and buyit, because perhaps he could buy at the same place some hugs and kissestoo: at which sally and quick repartee they all laughed. Herr Sohnsteinlong had been the declared lover of Aunt Hedwig's, and long had beenheld at arm's-length (quite literally occasionally) by that vigorousperson; who believed, because of her good heart, that her present dutywas not to consult her own happiness by becoming Frau Sohnstein, butto remain the Fräulein Brekel, and care for her lonely brother and herbrother's child. 

Being thus encouraged, Gottlieb bought the honey forthwith; and withAunt Hedwig's zealous assistance set about boiling it and straining itand kneading it into a sticky dough, all in accordance with the wise oldbaker's directions which he so long had treasured in his mind. And whenthe dough was packed in earthen pots, over which bladders were tied, allthe pots were set away in the coolest part of the cellar, as far fromthe great oven as possible, that the precious honey-cake might undergothat subtle change which only comes with time. 

[Illustration: Pots were set away in the coolest part of the cellar 208]

For at least a year must pass before the honey-cake really can be saidto be good at all; and the longer that it remains in the pots, evenuntil five-and-twenty years, the better does it become. Therefore it isthat all makers of lebkuchen who aspire to become famous professors ofthe craft add each year to their stock of honey-cake, yet draw alwaysfrom the oldest pots a time-soaked dough that ever grows more preciousin its sweet excellence of age. Thus large sums--more hundreds ofdollars than a young baker, just starting upon his farinaceous career, would dare to dream of--may be invested; and the old rich bakers who candower their daughters with many honey-pots know that in the matter ofsons-in-law they have but to pick and choose. 

It was about Christmas-time--which is the proper time for thisoffice--that Gottlieb made his first honey-cake; and it was a littlebefore the Christmas following that his first lebkuchen was baked. Fora whole week before this portentous event occurred he was in a nervoustremor; by day he scarcely slept; as he sat beside the oven at night hispipe so frequently went out that twice, having thus lost track of time, his baking of bread came near to being toast. And when at last thefateful night arrived that saw his first batch of lebkuchen in the oven, he actually forgot to smoke at all!

Gottlieb had but a sorry Christmas that year. The best that evenAunt Hedwig could say of his lebkuchen was that it was not bad. HerrSohnstein, to be sure, brazenly declared that it was delicious; butGottlieb remembered that Herr Sohnstein, who conducted a flourishingpractice in the criminal courts, was trained in the art of romanticdeviations from the truth whenever it was necessary to put a good faceon a bad cause; and he observed sadly that the notary's teeth were atvariance with his tongue, for the piece of lebkuchen that Herr Sohnsteinate was infinitessimally small. As for the regular German customers ofthe bakery, they simply bit one single bite and then refused to buy. Indeed, but for the children from St. Bridget's School--who, beingfor the most part boys, and Irish boys at that, presumably could eatanything--it is not impossible that that first baking of lebkuchenmight have remained uneaten even until this present day. And it wasdue mainly to the stout stomachs of successive generations of theseenterprising boys that the series of experiments which Gottlieb thenbegan in the making of lebkuchen was brought, in the course of years, to something like a satisfactory conclusion. But even at its best, neverwas this lebkuchen at all like that of which in his hopeful youth he haddreamed. 

Herr Sohnstein, to be sure, spoke highly of it, and even managed to eatof it quite considerable quantities. Gottlieb did not imagine thatHerr Sohnstein could have in this matter any ulterior motives; but AuntHedwig much more than half suspected that in order to please her bypleasing her brother he was making a sacrifice of his stomach to hisheart. If this theory had any foundation in fact, it is certain thatHerr Sohnstein did not appreciably profit by his gallant risk ofindigestion; for while Aunt Hedwig by no means seemed disposed toshatter all his hopes by a sharp refusal, she gave no indicationwhatever of any intention to permit her ripe red lips to utter thelonged-for word of assent. Aunt Hedwig, unquestionably, was needlesslycruel in her treatment of Herr Sohnstein, and he frequently told her so. Sometimes he would ask her, with a fine irony, if she meant to keep himwaiting for his answer until her brother had made lebkuchen as good asthe lebkuchen of Nürnberg? To which invariably she would reply that, inthe first place, she did not know of any question that he ever had askedher that required an answer; and, in the second place, that she did meanto keep him waiting just precisely that long. And then she would add, with a delicate drollery that was all her own, that whenever he gottired of waiting he might hire a whole horse-car all to himself and rideright away. Ah, this Aunt Hedwig had a funny way with her!

And so the years slipped by; and little Minna, who laughed at thepassing years as merrily as Aunt Hedwig laughed at Herr Sohnstein, grewup into a blithe, trig, round maiden, and ceased to be little Minna atall. She was her mother over again, Gottlieb said; but this was not byany means true. She did have her mother's goodness and sweetness, buther sturdy body bespoke her father's stronger strain. Aunt Hedwig, ofthis same strain, undisguisedly was stocky. Minna was only comfortablystout, with good broad shoulders, and an honest round waist that anybodywith half an eye for waists could see would be a satisfactory armful. And she had also Aunt Hedwig's constant cheeriness. All day long herlaugh sounded happily through the house, or her voice went blithely inhappy talk, or, failing anybody to talk to, trilled out some scrap of asweet old German song. The two apprentices and the young man who drovethe bread-wagon of course were wildly and desperately in love withher--a tender passion that they dared not disclose to its object, butthat they frequently and boastingly aired to each other. Naturally theseinterchanges of confidence were apt to be somewhat tempestuous. Asthe result of one of them, when the elder apprentice had declared thatMinna's beautiful brown hair was finer than any wig in the window of thehair-dresser on the west side of the square, and that she had given hima lock of it; and when the young man who drove the bread-wagon (he wasa profane young man) had declared that it was a verdammter sight finerthan any wig, and that she hadn't--the elder apprentice got a dreadfulblack eye, and the younger apprentice was almost smothered in thedough-trough, and the young man who drove the bread-wagon had his headbroken with the peel that was broken over it. 

[Illustration: Almost smothered in the dough-trough 214]

Aunt Hedwig did not need to be told, nor did Minna, the little jade, thecause of this direful combat; and both of these amiable women thoughtGottlieb very hard-hearted because he charged the broken peel--it wasa new one--and the considerable amount of dough that was wasted bysticking to the younger apprentice's person, against the wages of thethree combatants. 

This reference to the apprentices and to the wagon shows that Gottlieb'sbakery no longer was a small bakery, but a large one. In the making oflebkuchen, it is true, he had not prospered; but in all other ways hehad prospered amazingly. From Avenue A over to the East River, and fromfar below Tompkins Square clear away to the upper regions of LexingtonAvenue, the young man who drove the bread-wagon rattled along everymorning as hard as ever he could go, and he vowed and declared, thisyoung man did, that nothing but his love for Minna kept him in a placewhere all the year round he was compelled in every single day to do thework of two. Meanwhile the little shop on East Fourth Street hadbeen abandoned for a bigger shop, and this, in turn, for one stillbigger--quite a palace of a shop, with plate-glass windows--on Avenue B. It was here, beginning in a modest way with a couple of tables whereatchance-hungry people might sit while they ate zwieback or a thick sliceof hearty pumpernickel and drank a glass of milk, that a restaurant wasestablished as a tender to the bakery. It did not set out to be a largerestaurant, and, in fact, never became one. In the back part of theshop were a dozen tables, covered with oil-cloth and decorated withred napkins, and at these tables, under the especial direction of AuntHedwig, who was a culinary genius, was served a limited, but from aGerman stand-point most toothsome, bill of fare. There was Hasenpfeffermit Spätzle, and Sauerbraten mit Kartoffelklösse, and Rindfleisch mitMeerrettig, and Bratwurst mit Rothkraut; and Aunt Hedwig made deliciouscoffee, and the bakery of course provided all manner of sweet cakes. Inthe summer-time they did a famous business in ice-cream. 

On the plate-glass windows beneath the sweeping curve of white lettersin which the name of the owner of the bakery was set forth was added insmaller letters the words "Café Nürnberger. " Gottlieb and Aunt Hedwigand the man who made the sign (this last, however, for the venal reasonthat more letters would be required) had stood out stoutly for thehonest German "Kaffehaus;" but Minna, whose tastes were refined, hadinsisted upon the use of the French word: there was more style about it, she said. And this was a case in which style was wedded to substantialexcellence. What with the good things which Gottlieb baked and the goodthings which Aunt Hedwig cooked, the Café Nürnberger presentlyacquired a somewhat enviable reputation. It became even a resort of thearistocracy, in this case represented by the dwellers in the handsomehouses on the eastern and northern sides of Tompkins Square. Of winterevenings, when bright gas-light and a big glowing stove made therestaurant a very cozy place indeed, large parties of these aristocratswould drop in on their way home from the Thalia Theatre, and would stuffthemselves with Hasenpfeffer and Sauerbraten and Kartoffelklösse, andwould swig Aunt Hedwig's strong coffee (out of cups big enough and thickenough to have served as shells and been fired from a mortar), until itwould seem as though they must certainly crack their aristocratic skins. 

Altogether, Gottlieb was in a flourishing line of business; and butfor the deep sorrow that time never wholly could heal, and but for thecontinued failure of his attempts to make a really excellent lebkuchen, he would have been a very happy man. By this time he had come to be abaker of ease. The hard part of the work was done by the apprentices, and the morning delivery of bread was attended to by the young man whodrove the bread-wagon. In the summer-time he would take Minna andAunt Hedwig, always accompanied by her faithful Herr Sohnstein, uponbeer-drinking expeditions to Guttenberg and other fashionable suburbanresorts; and through the cozy winter evenings he smoked his long pipecomfortably in the little room at the back of the shop, where Minna andAunt Hedwig sat with him, and where Herr Sohnstein, also smoking a longpipe, usually sat with him too. Sometimes Minna would sing sweet Germansongs to them, accompanying herself very creditably upon a cabinetorgan--for Minna had received not only the substantial education thatenabled her to keep the bakery accounts, but also had been instructedin the polite accomplishments of music and the dance. In summer, whenexpeditions were not on foot, these smoking parties usually were heldupon the roof; where Gottlieb had made a garden and grew roses in pots, and even had raised some rare and delicious cauliflowers. 

It was a pleasant place, that roof, of a warm summer evening, especiallywhen the rising full-moon sent a shimmering path of glory across therippling waters of the East River, and cast over the bad-smelling regionof Hunter's Point a glamour of golden haze that made it seem, oil tanksand all, a bit of fairy-land. At such times, as they sat among therose-bushes and cauliflowers, Herr Sohnstein not infrequently would stopsmoking his long pipe while he slyly squeezed Aunt Hedwig's plump hand. And Gottlieb also would stop smoking, as his thoughts wandered awayalong that glittering path across the waters, and so up to heaven wherehis Minna was. And then his thoughts would return to earth, to hislittle Minna--for to him she still was but a child--and he would findhis sorrow lessened in thankfulness that, while his greatest treasurewas lost to him, this good daughter and so many other good things stillwere his. 

But the lebkuchen dream of Gottlieb's youth remained unrealized; stillunattained was the goal that twenty years before had seemed so near. However, being a stout-hearted baker of the solid Nürnberg strain, he did not at all surrender hope. Each year he added to his stock ofhoney-cake; and he knew that when fortune favored him at last, as hestill believed that fortune would favor him, he would have in store suchhoney-cake as would enable him to make lebkuchen fit to be eaten by theKaiser himself!

After the affair of the broken peel there was a coolness betweenGottlieb and the elder apprentice, which, increasing, led to a positivecoldness, and then to a separation. And then it was that Fate put alarge spoke in all the wheels which ran in the Café Nürnberg by bringinginto Gottlieb's employment a ruddy young Nürnberger, lately come out ofthat ancient city to America, named Hans Kuhn. 

It was not chance that led Hans to earn his living in a bakery when hecame to New York. He was a born baker: a baker by choice, by force ofnatural genius, by hereditary right. Back in the dusk of the MiddleAges, as far as ever the traditions of his family and the records ofthe Guild of Bakers of Nürnberg ran, all the men of his race had beenbakers, and famous ones at that. A cumulative destiny to bake was uponhim, and he loved baking with all his heart. It was no desire to abandonhis craft that had led him to leave Nürnberg and cross the ocean;rather was he moved by a noble ambition to build up on a broad and surefoundation the noble art of baking in the New World. And it had chanced, moreover, that in the conscription he had drawn an unlucky number. 

When this young man entered the Café Nürnberg--being drawn thither byits display of the name of his own native city--and asked for a job, hisair was so frank, his talk about baking so intelligent, that Gottliebtook kindly to him at once; and Minna, sitting demurely at her accountsin the little wire cage over which was a fine tin sign inscribed ingolden letters with the word "Cashier, " was mightily well pleased, in ademure and proper way, at sight of his ruddy cheeks and bushy shock oflight-brown hair and little yellow mustache and honest blue eyes. Whenhe told, in answer to Gottlieb's questions, that he was the grandson ofthe very baker in Nürnberg whose delicious lebkuchen Gottlieb had eatenwhen he was a boy, and that a part of his bakerly equipment was thelebkuchen recipe that had come down in his family from the baker genius, his remote ancestor, who had invented it--well, when he had told thismuch about himself, it is not surprising that Gottlieb fairly jumped forjoy, and engaged him, not as his apprentice, but as his assistant, onthe spot. 

It was rather dashing to Gottlieb's enthusiasm, however, that hisassistant--thereby manifesting a shrewd worldly wisdom--declinedimmediately to impart his secret. He would make all the lebkuchen thatwas required, he said, but for the present he need not tell how it wasmade--possibly the Herr Brekel might not be satisfied with it, afterall. But the Herr Brekel was satisfied with it, and so was all theneighborhood when the first batch of lebkuchen was baked and placed onsale. Indeed, as the fame of this delicious lebkuchen went abroad, thecoming of the new baker was accepted by all Germans with discriminatingpalates as one of the most important events that ever had occurred onthe East Side. The work of the young man who drove the bread-wagon wasso greatly increased that he organized a strike, uniting in his ownperson the several functions of strikers, walking delegates, districtassembly, and executive committee. And when the strike collapsed--thatis to say, when the young man was discharged summarily--Gottlieb reallydid find it necessary to hire two new young men, and to buy an extrahorse and wagon. Morally speaking, therefore (although the originalyoung man, who remained out of employment for several weeks, and hada pretty hard time of it, did not think so), the strike was a completesuccess. 

As a matter of course no well-set-up, right-thinking young fellow ofthree-and-twenty could go on baking lebkuchen in the same bakery withMinna Brekel for any length of time without falling in love with her. Nor was it reasonable to suppose that even Minna, who had treated casualapprentices and wagon-driving young men with a seemly scorn, wouldcontinue to sit in the seat of the scornful when siege in form was laidto her heart by a properly ruddy-cheeked and blue-eyed assistant baker, whose skill was such that he could make lebkuchen fit to be eaten by theGerman portion of the saints in Paradise. At the end of three monthsthe feelings of these young people towards each other were quite clearlydefined in their own minds; at the end of six months, as they weresitting together one afternoon in the little back room at a time whenthe shop happened to be empty, things came to the pleasing crisis thatthey both for a considerable period had foreseen. 

But then, unfortunately, came a storm--that neither of them had foreseenat all--that shook the Café Nürnberg to its very foundations!

Gottlieb was the storm, and he moved over a wide area with greatrapidity and violence. He was central, naturally, over Hans and Minna:the first of whom, after being denounced with great energy as a viperwho had been warmed to the biting point, was ordered to take himself offwithout a single instant's delay, and never to darken the doors of theCafé Nürnberg again; and the second of whom was declared to be a babyfool, who must be kept locked up in her own third-story back room, andfed on nothing more appetizing than pumpernickel and water until shecame to her senses. In the outer edges of the storm the apprentices andthe young men who drove the wagons found themselves most hotly involved;and a very violent gust swept down upon Aunt Hedwig and Herr Sohnstein, who surely were as innocent in the premises as any two people quitesatisfactorily engaged in earnest but somewhat dilatory love-making oftheir own very well could be. Indeed, this storm was an ill wind thatblew a famous blast of luck to Herr Sohnstein: for Aunt Hedwig, beingdreadfully upset by her brother's outbreak, went of her own accord toHerr Sohnstein for sympathy and consolation--and found both in suchliberal quantities, and with them such tender pleadings to enter amatrimonial haven where storms should be unknown, that presently, smiling through her tears, she uttered the words of consent for whichthe excellent notary had waited loyally through more than a dozen wearyyears. It was Herr Sohn-stein's turn to be upset then. He couldn'tbelieve, until he had soothed himself with a phenomenal number of pipes, that happiness so perfect could be real. 

Possibly one reason why Gottlieb's storm was so violent was that hecould not give any good reason for it. Hans really was a most estimableyoung man; he came of a good family; as a baker he was nothing short ofa genius. All this Gottlieb knew, and all this he frequently had said toAunt Hedwig and to Herr Sohnstein, and, worst of all, to Minna. As eachof these persons now pointed out to him, in order to be consistent inhis new position he must eat a great many of his own words; and he wouldhave essayed this indigestible banquet willingly had he been convincedthat thus he really could have proved that Hans was a viper and all theother unpleasant things which he had called him in his wrath. In truth, Gottlieb was, and in the depths of his heart he knew that he was, neither more nor less than a dog in the manger. His feeling simply wasthat Minna was his Minna, and that neither Hans nor anybody else had anyright to her. This was not a position that admitted of logical defence;but it was one that he could be ugly and stick to: which was preciselywhat he did. 

Minna did not remain long a prisoner in her own room, feeding uponpumpernickel and water and bitter thoughts. Aunt Hedwig and HerrSohnstein succeeded in putting a stop to that cruelty. And these elderlylovers, whose fresh love had made them of a sudden as young as Minnaherself, and had filled thera with a warm sympathy for her, laid theirheads together and sought earnestly to circumvent in her interest herfather's stern decree. It was a joy to see this picture, in the littleroom back of the shop, of middle-aged love-making; and it was a littlestartling to find how the new youth that their love had given themhad filled them with a quite extravagantly youthful recklessness. Herr Sohnstein, who was well known as a grave, sedate, and unusuallycautious notary, seriously suggested (though he did not explain exactlyhow this would do it) that they should make an effort to bring Gottliebto terms by burning down the bakery. And Aunt Hedwig, whose prudenttemperament was sufficiently disclosed in the fact that she hadhesitated in the matter of her own love affair for upward of a dozenyears, not less seriously advanced the proposition that they all shouldelope from the Café Nürnberg and set up a rival establishment! HerrSohnstein did not make any audible comment upon this violent proposal ofAunt Hedwig's, but it evidently put an idea into his head. 

As Gottlieb happened to be walking along the south side of TompkinsSquare, a fortnight or so after the tempest, he found his steps arrestedby a great sign that lay face downward on trestles across the sidewalk, in readiness for hoisting in place upon the front of a smart new shop. Inside the shop he saw painters and paper-hangers at work; and on thelarge plate-glass window a man was gluing white letters with a dexterouscelerity. The letters already in place read "Nürnberger Lebku--" And asto this legend he saw "chen" added, he rolled out a stout South Germanoath and stamped upon the ground. But far stronger was the oath that heuttered as the big sign was swung upward, and he read upon it, in goldenGerman letters:

[Illustration: Bakery Sign 226]

That the Recording Angel blotted out with his tears the fines whichhe was compelled on this occasion to record against Gottlieb Brekel inHeaven's high chancery is highly improbable. In the only known case ofsuch lachrymic erasure the provocation to profanity was a commendablemoral motive that was eminently unselfish. But when Gottlieb Brekelswore roundly in his native German all the way from the south-westcorner of Tompkins Square to the corner of Third Street and the Bowery;and from that point, when he had transacted his business there, all theway back to the Café Nürnberg in Avenue B, his motives could not in anywise be regarded as moral, and selfishness lay at their very root. 

Gottlieb already found himself involved in serious difficulties with themany customers who bought his lebkuchen; for with the departure of Hanshe had been compelled to fall back upon his own resources, and withthe most lamentable results. Great quantities of his first baking werereturned to him, with comments in both High German and Low German ofa very uncomplimentary sort. His second baking--saving the relativelyinconsiderable quantities consumed by the omnivorous children of St. Bridget's School--simply remained upon his hands unsold. And now, to make his humiliation the more complete, here was his dischargedassistant setting up as his rival; and with every probability thatthe attempted rivalry would be crowned with success. Really there wassomething, perhaps, to be said in palliation of Gottlieb's profanityafter all. 

When he told at home that evening of Hans Kuhn's upstart pretensions, his statements were received with an ominous silence. Aunt Hedwigonly coughed slightly, and continued her knitting with more than usualenergy. Herr Sohnstein only moved a little in his chair and puffed alittle harder than usual at his pipe. Minna, who was in her wire cage inthe shop settling her cash, only bent more intently over her books. Butwhen Gottlieb went a step further and said, looking very keenly at HerrSohnstein as he said it, that some great rascal must have lent Hans themoney to make his fine start, Aunt Hedwig at once bristled up and saidwith emphasis that rascals, neither great nor small, were in the habitof lending their money to deserving young men; and Herr Sohnstein, alittle sheepishly perhaps, and mumbling a little in his gray mustache, ventured the statement that this was a free country already, and peopleliving in it were at liberty to lend their money to whom they pleased;and Minna, looking up from her books--Gottlieb's back was turned towardsher--blew a most unfilial kiss from the tips of her chubby fingers toHerr Sohnstein right over her father's shoulder. All of which goesto show that something very like open war had broken out in the CaféNürnberg, and that the once united family dwelling therein was fairlydivided into rival camps. 

Gottlieb's dreary case was made a little less dreary when he found thatthe lebkuchen which Hans produced in his fine new bakery was distinctlyan inferior article; not much better, in fact, than Gottlieb's own. Toany intelligent baker the reason for this was obvious: Hans was makinghis lebkuchen with new honey-cake. Thus made, even by the best ofrecipes, it could not be anything but a failure. Gottlieb gave a longsigh of relief as he realized this comforting fact, and at the same timethought of his own great store of honey-pots--there were hundredsof them now--all ready and waiting to his hand. But his feeling ofsatisfaction passed quickly to one of impotent rage as he recognized hisown powerlessness, for all his wealth of honey-pots, to make lebkuchenwhich would be eaten by anybody but the tough-palated children from St. Bridget's School. He was alone, smoking, in the little room back of theshop as this bitter thought came to him; in his rage he struck the tablebeside him a blow so sounding that the family cat, peacefully slumberingbehind the stove, sprang up with a yell of terror and made but two jumpsto the open door. Coming on top of all his other trials--the revolt ofhis own little Minna, the defection of Aunt Hedwig, and the almost openenmity of Herr Sohnstein--this compulsory surrender of all his hope ofhonest fame was indeed a deadly blow. 

Gottlieb smoked on in sullen anger; his heart torn and tortured, and hismind filled with a confusion of bitter evil thoughts. And presently--forthe devil is at every man's elbow, ready to take advantage of any suddenweakness, or turn to his own purposes any too great strength--thesethoughts grew more evil and more clear: until they fairly resolvedthemselves into the determination to steal from Hans the recipe formaking lebkuchen, and so to crush completely his rival and at the sametime to make certain his own fortune and fame. 

Of course the devil did not plant the notion of theft in Gottlieb's mindin this bald fashion; for the devil is a most considerate person, andever shows a courteous disposition to spare the feelings of those whomhe would lead into sin. No: the temptation that he suggested was thesubtle and ingenious one that Gottlieb should proceed to recover hisown stolen property! His logic was admirable: Hans had been Gottlieb'sassistant; and as such Gottlieb had owned him and his recipe as well. When Hans went away and took the recipe with him, he took that whichstill belonged to his master. Therefore, triumphantly argued the devil, Gottlieb had a perfect right to regain the recipe either by fair meansor by foul. And finally, as a bit of supplementary devil-logic, thethought was suggested that inasmuch as Hans certainly must know therecipe by heart, the mere loss of the paper on which it was writtenwould not be any real loss to him at all! It is only fair to Gottlieb'sgood angel to state that during this able presentment of the wrongside of the case he did venture to hint once or twice--in the feeble, perfunctory sort of way that unfortunately seems to be characteristic ofgood angels when their services really are most urgently required--thatthe whole matter might be compromised satisfactorily to all the partiesin interest by permitting Hans to marry Minna, and by then taking himinto partnership in the bakery. And it is only just to Gottlieb to statethat to these fainthearted suggestions of his good angel he did not giveone moment's heed. 

Now the devil is a thorough-going sort of a person, and having plantedthe evil wish in Gottlieb's soul he lost no time in opening to him anevil way to its accomplishment. When Hans, a stranger in New York, hadcome to work at the Cafe Nürnberg, Gottlieb had commended him tothe good graces of a friend of his, a highly respectable little roundBrunswicker widow who let lodgings, and in the comfortable quarters thusprovided for him Hans ever since had remained. In this same house lodgedalso one of Gottlieb's apprentices--a loose young fellow, for whoseproper regulation the widow more than once had been compelled to seekhis master's counsel and aid. In this combination of circumstances, to which the devil now directed his attention, Gottlieb saw hisopportunity. It was easy to make the widow believe that the loose youngapprentice had taken the short step from looseness to crime, and thata suspicion of theft rested upon him so heavily as to justify thesearching of his room; it was easy to make the widow keep guard belowwhile Gottlieb searched; and it was very easy then to search, not forimaginary stolen goods in the chest of the apprentice, but for thatwhich he himself wanted to steal from the chest of Hans Kuhn. As toopening the chest there was no difficulty at all. Gottlieb had halfa dozen Nürnberg locks in his house, and he had counted, as the eventproved correctly, upon making the key of one of these locks serve histurn. And in the chest, without any trouble at all, he found a leatherwallet, and in the wallet the precious recipe--written on parchmentin old High German that he found very difficult to read, and datedin Nürnberg in the year 1603. Gottlieb was pale as death as he wentdown-stairs to the widow; and his teeth fairly chattered as he told herthat he had made a mistake. He tried to say that the apprentice was nota thief--but the word _dieb_ somehow stuck in his throat. Keen chillspenetrated him as he almost ran through the streets to his home. For thedevil, who heretofore had been in front of him and had only beckoned, now was behind him and was driving him with a right goodwill. 

When he entered the room at the back of the shop, where Minna wassewing, and where Herr Sohnstein, with his arm comfortably around AuntHedwig's waist, was smoking his long pipe, he created a stir of genuinealarm. As Aunt Hedwig very truly said, he looked as though he had seena ghost. Herr Sohnstein, of a more practical turn of mind, asked him ifhe had been knocked down and robbed; and the word _beraubt_ grated mostharshly upon Gottlieb's ears. But what cut him most of all was the wayin which Minna--forgetting all his late unkind-ness at sight of hispale, frightened face--sprang to him with open arms, and with all theold love in her voice asked him to tell her what had gone wrong. Underthese favoring conditions, Gottlieb's good angel bestirred himselfsomewhat more vigorously, and for a moment it seemed not impossible thatright might triumph over wrong. But the devil bustled promptly upon thescene, and of course had things all his own way again in a moment. Itcertainly is most unfortunate that good angels, as a rule, are so weakin their angelic knees!

Gottlieb pushed Minna away from him roughly; addressed to Aunt Hedwigthe impolite remark that ghosts only were seen by women and fools; in asurly tone informed Herr Sohnstein that policemen still were plentifulin the vicinity of Tompkins Square; and then, having planted thesebarbed arrows in the breasts of his daughter, his sister, and hisfriend, sought the retirement of his own upper room. As he left them, Minna buried her face in Aunt Hedwig's capacious bosom and criedbitterly, and Aunt Hedwig also cried; and Herr Sohnstein, laying asidefor the moment his pipe, put his arms protectingly around them both. They all were very miserable. 

In the upper room, where the air seemed so stifling that he had to openthe window wide in order to breathe, Gottlieb was very miserable too. He was fleeing into Tarshish, this temporarily wicked baker; and just asfell out in the case of that other one who fled to Tarshish, his flightwas a failure: for this little world of ours is far too small to giveany one a chance to run away from committed sin. 

Gottlieb tried to divert his thoughts from his crime, and at the sametime tried to reap its reward by studying the stolen recipe; but hisattempt was not successful. The cramped letters, brown with age, on thebrown parchment, danced before his eyes; and the quaint, intricate HighGerman phraseology became more and more involved. He could make nothingof it at all. And the thought occurred to him that perhaps he neverwould be able to make anything of it--that, without losing any partof the penalty justly attendant upon his crime, the crime itselfmight prove to be, so far as the practical benefit that he sought wasconcerned, absolutely futile. As this dreadful possibility arose beforehis mind a faintness and giddiness came over him. The room seemed to bewhirling around him; life seemed to be slipping away from him; therewas a strange, horrible ringing in his ears. He leaned forward over thetable at which he was sitting and buried his face in his hands. 

Then, possibly, Gottlieb fell asleep, though of this he never feltreally sure. What is quite certain is that he saw, as clearly as heever saw her in life, his dear dead Minna; but with a face so sad, soreproachful, so full of piteous entreaty, that his blood seemed to standstill, while a consuming coldness settled upon his heart. He struggledto speak with her, to assure her that he would repair the evil that hehad done, to plead for forgiveness; but, for all his striving, no otherwords would come to his lips save those which a little while beforehe had spoken so roughly to poor Aunt Hedwig: "The only people who seeghosts are women and fools!"

And then, of a sudden, he found himself still seated at the table, thebrown parchment still spread out before him, and the faint light ofearly morning breaking into the room. The window was wide open, as hehad left it, and he was chilled to the marrow; he had a shocking coldin the head; there were rheumatic twinges in all his joints as he arose. What with the physical misery arising from these causes, and the moralmisery arising from his sense of committed sin, he was in about asdesperately bad a humor with himself as a man could be. He was in nomood to make another effort to read the difficult German of the recipe, the cause of all his troubles. The sight of it pained him, and he thrustit hurriedly into an old desk in which were stored (and these alsowere a source of pain to him) several generations of uncollectedbills--practical proofs that the adage in regard to the impossibility ofsimultaneously possessing cakes and pennies does not always hold good. 

He locked the desk and put the key in his pocket; and then returned thekey to the lock and left it there, as the thought occurred to him thatthe locking of this desk, that never in all the years that he hadowned it had been locked before, might arouse suspicion. It seemed mostnatural to Gottlieb that his actions should be regarded with suspicion;he had a feeling that already his crime must be known to half the world. 

And before night it certainly is true that the one person most deeplyinterested in the discovery and punishment of Gottlieb's crime--thatis to say, Hans Kuhn--did know all about it; which fact would seemsurprising, considering how skilfully Gottlieb had gone about his work, were it not remembered that his unwitting accessory had been thelittle round Brunswicker widow, and were it not known that little roundwidows--Brunswick born or born elsewhere--as a class are incapable ofkeeping a secret. 

This excellent woman, to do her justice, had followed Gottlieb's ordersto the letter. He had warned her not to tell the loose apprenticethat his chest had been searched; and, so far as that apprentice wasconcerned, wild horses might have been employed to drag that littleround widow to pieces--at least she might have permitted the wild horsesto be hitched up to her--before ever an indiscreet word would havepassed her lips. But when Hans Kuhn, for whom she entertained a highrespect, and for whom she had also that warmly friendly feeling whichtrig middle-aged widows not seldom manifest towards good-looking youngmen, came to her in a fine state of wrath, and told her that his chesthad been ransacked (he did not tell her of his loss, for he had nothimself observed it), she did not consider that she violated anyconfidence in telling him everything that had occurred. It was all amistake, she said; the Herr Brekel had gone into the wrong room; shemust set the matter right at once; that bad young man might be a thief, after all. Hans felt a cold thrill run through him at the widow's words. But he controlled himself so well that she did not suspect his inwardperturbation; and she accepted in as good faith his offer to inform theHerr Brekel of his error as she did, a day later, his assurance that thematter had been satisfactorily adjusted, and that the innocence of theapprentice had been proved. 

And then Hans returned to his violated chest, and found that the dreadwhich had assailed his soul was founded in substantial truth--the recipewas gone! In itself the loss of the recipe was no very great matter, forhe knew it by heart; but that Gottlieb--who had also a cellar full ofrich old honey-cake--should have gained possession of it was a desperatematter indeed. Here instantly was an end to the hope of successfulrivalry that Hans had cherished; and with the wreck of his luck intrade, as it seemed to him in the first shock of his misfortune, awayin fragments to the four winds of heaven was scattered every vestigeof probability that he would have luck in love. Being so suddenlyconfronted with a compound catastrophe so overwhelming, even a bolderbaker than Hans Kuhn very well might have been for a time aghast. 

But as his wits slowly came together again Hans perceived that the gamewas not by any means lost, after all; on the contrary, it looked verymuch as though he had it pretty well in his own hands. Gottlieb was athief, and all that was needed to complete the chain of evidence againsthim was his first baking of lebkuchen; for that as clearly would provehim to be in possession of the stolen recipe as what the widow couldtell would prove that he had created for himself an opportunity to stealit. The most agreeable way of winning a father-in-law is not by force ofthreatening to hale him to a police court, but it is better to win himthat way than not to win him at all, Hans thought; and he thought alsothat this was one of the occasions when it was quite justifiable tofight the devil with fire. So his spirits rose, and now he longed for, as eagerly as in the first moments of his loss he had dreaded, theproduction of such lebkuchen at the Café Nürnberg as would prove theproprietor of that highly respectable establishment to be neither morenor less than a robber. 

Hans was both annoyed and surprised as time passed on and the "cakessucculent but damnatory" were not forthcoming from Gottlieb's oven. Hehimself went on making unsatisfactory lebkuchen of bad materials by agood formula, and Gottlieb continued to make unsatisfactory lebkuchenby a bad formula of the best materials. Orthodox German palates foundnothing to commend and much to reprobate in both results. This was thesituation for several weeks. Hans could not understand it at all. Thesubject was a delicate one to broach to Minna during their short butblissful interviews about dusk in the central fastnesses of TompkinsSquare, at which interviews Aunt Hedwig winked and Herr Sohnsteinopenly connived by keeping watch for them against Gottlieb's possibleappearance; for Hans had determined that until he had positive proof togo upon he would keep secret, and most of all from Minna, the dreadfulfact of her father's crime. Therefore did he remain in a state of veryharrowing uncertainty, with his plan of campaign completely brought to astand. 

During this period a heavy cloud hung over the Café Nürnberg. Gottliebcame fitfully to his meals; and when he did come, he ate almost nothing. Each day he grew more and more morose; each night, when poor Aunt Hedwigwas not kept awake by her own sorrowful thoughts, her slumbers were, broken by hearing her brother pacing heavily the floor of the adjoiningroom. In some sort he made up for his loss of sleep at night by sleepingof an evening in the little room back of the shop, falling into restlessnaps (when he should have been restfully smoking his long pipe), fromwhich he would wake with a start and sometimes with a cry of alarm, andwould dart furtive horrified glances at Aunt Hedwig and Herr Sohnstein:who were doing nothing of a horrifying nature, only sitting cozily closetogether, more or less enfolded in each other's arms. It was a littleinconsiderate on the part of the lovers, and very-hard on Minna, thisextremely open love-making; for Minna's love-making necessarily wasby fitful snatches amid the bleak desolations of Tompkins Square. Theywould try to comfort each other, she and Hans, as they stood cheerlesslyunder the chill lee of the music stand; but their outlook was a drearyone, and their efforts in this direction were not crowned with any greatsuccess. Sometimes as Minna came home again along the west side of thesquare, and saw in Spengler's window the wreaths of highly-artificialimmortelles with the word "Ruhe" upon them in vivid purple letters, she fairly would fall to crying over the thought that until she shouldbecome a fit subject for such a wreath there was small chance that anyreal rest would be hers. 

However, all this is aside from Gottlieb's horrified looks as he wakedfrom his troubled slumbers--looks which would disappear as he becamethoroughly aroused, but only to return again after his next uneasy nap. One day he startled Aunt Hedwig by asking her if she believed in ghosts. Remembering his severe words in condemnation of her casual reference tothese supernatural beings, it was with some hesitation that she repliedthat she did. Still more to her surprise, Gottlieb turned away from herhurriedly, yet not so hurriedly but that she saw a strange, scared lookupon his face, and in a low and trembling voice replied: "And so do I!"

And now the fact may as well be admitted frankly that a ghost was thedisturbing element that was making Gottlieb's life go wrong; that, asthere seemed to be every reason to believe, was hurrying him towards thegrave: for a middle-aged German who refuses to eat, whose regular sleepforsakes him, and who actually gives up smoking, naturally cannot beexpected to remain long in this world. 

It was the ghost of his dead wife. At first she appeared to him only inhis dreams, standing beside the desk in which he had placed the stolenrecipe for making lebkuchen, and holding down the lid of that desk witha firm but diaphanous white hand. Presently she appeared to him quite asclearly in his waking hours. Her face still wore an expression at oncetender and reproachful; but every day the look of tenderness diminished, while the look of reproach grew stronger and more stern. Each time thathe sought to open the desk that he might take thence the recipe and makehis crime a practical business success, the figure assumed an airso terribly menacing that his heart failed him, and he gave over theattempt. 

This, then, was the all-sufficient reason why the good lebkuchenthat would have proved Gottlieb a thief was not for sale at the CaféNürenburg; and this was the reason why Gottlieb himself, broken downby loss of food and sleep and by the nervous wear and tear incident toforced companionship with an angry ghost, was drawing each day nearerand nearer to that dark portal through which bakers and all other peoplepass hence into the shadowy region whence there is no return. 

Gottlieb Brekel never had been an especially pious man. As became areputable German citizen, he had paid regularly the rent of a pew in theChurch of the Redemptorist Fathers in Third Street; but, excepting onsuch high feasts as Christmas and Easter, he usually had been contentto occupy it and to discharge his religious duties at large vicariously. Aunt Hed-wig's bonnet invariably was the most brilliantly conspicuousfeature of the entire congregation, just as the prettiest face in theentire congregation invariably was Minna's. But now that Gottlieb wasconfronted with a spiritual difficulty, it occurred to him that he mightadvantageously resort in his extremity to spiritual aid. He had no veryclear notion how the aid would be given; he was not even clear as tohow he ought to set about asking for it; and he was troubled by theconviction that in order to obtain it he must not only repent of hissin, but must make atonement by restitution--a possibility (for thedevil still had a good grip upon him) that made him hesitate a longwhile before he set about purchasing ease for his conscience at so heavya material cost. However, his good angel at last managed to pluck upsome courage--it was high time--and, strengthened by this tardily givenassistance, he betook himself in search of consolation within churchwalls. 

The Church of the Redemptorist Fathers is a very beautiful church, andat all times--save through the watches of the night and through onemid-day hour--its doors stand hospitably open, silently inviting poorsinners, weary and heavy laden with their sins, to enter into the calmof its quiet holiness and there find rest. Tall, slender pillars upholdits vaulted roof, in the groinings of which lurk mysterious shadows. Below, a warm, rich light comes through the stained-glass windows:whereon are pictured the blessed St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, founderof the Redemptorist Congregation, blessedly instructing the chubby-facedchoristers; and the Venerable Clement Hofbauer, "primus in Germania" ofthe Redemptorists, all in his black gown, kneeling, praying no doubt forthe outcast German souls for the saving of which he worked so hard andso well; and (a picture that Minna dearly loved) St. Joseph and thesweet Virgin and the little Christ-child fleeing together through thedesert from the wrath of the Judean king. And ranged around the walls onperches high aloft are statues of various minor saints and of the TwelveApostles; of which Minna's favorite was the Apostle Matthias, becausethis saint, with his high forehead tending towards baldness, and hislong gray beard and gray hair, and his kindly face, and even the axe inhis hand (that was not unlike a baker's peel), made her think alwaysof her dear father. The pew that Gottlieb paid for so regularly, and soirregularly occupied, was just beneath the statue of this saint; which, however, gave Minna less pleasure than would have been hers had not thenext saint in the row been the Apostle Simon with his dreadful saw. Itmust have hurt so horribly to be sawed in two, she thought. In the duskydepths of the great chancel gleamed the white marble of the beautifulaltar, guarded by St. Peter with his keys and St. Paul with his nakedtwo-edged sword; and above the altar was the dead Christ on Calvary, with His desolate mother and the despairing Magdalene and St. John thedivine. 

Into this beautiful church it was that Gottlieb, led thither by hisgood angel, entered; and the devil--raging in the terrible but impotentfashion that is habitual with devils when they see slipping away fromtheir snares the souls which they thought to win to wickedness--ofcourse was forced to remain outside. But what feelings of keenrepentance filled this poor sinning baker's heart within that holyplace, what good resolves came to him, what light and refreshmentirradiated and cheered his darkened, harried soul--all these are thingswhich better may be suggested here than written out in full. For thesethings are so real, so sacred, and so beautiful with a heavenly beauty, that they may not lightly be used for decorative purposes in mereromance. 

Let it suffice, then, to tell--for so is our poor human stuff puttogether that trivial commonplace facts often exhibit most searchinglythe changes for good or for evil which have come to pass in ourinmost souls--that Gottlieb, on returning to the Café Nürnberg, atea prodigious dinner; and after his dinner, for the first time in afortnight, smoked a thoroughly refreshing pipe. 

Over his dinner and his pipe he was silent, manifesting, however, a sortof sheepishness and constraint that were not less strange in the eyesof Aunt Hedwig and Minna than was the sudden revival of his interest intobacco and food. As he smoked, a pleasant thought came to him. When hehad knocked the ashes from his pipe he ordered Minna, surlily, to bringhim his hat and coat; he must pay a visit to that rascal Sohnstein, hesaid; and so went out. He left the two women lost in wonder; and AuntHed-wig, because of his characterization of her dear Sohnstein as arascal, disposed to weep. And yet, somehow, they both felt that thestorm was breaking, and that clear weather was at hand. There was nobodyin the shop just then; and the two, standing behind the rampart offreshly-baked cakes that was high heaped up upon the counter, embracedeach other and mingled tears, which they knew--by reason of the womanlyinstinct that was in them--were tears of joy. 

And that very evening the prophecy of happiness that was in their joyfulsorrow was happily fulfilled. 

Gottlieb did not return to the Café Nürnberg until after nine o'clock. With him came Herr Sohnstein. They both were very grave and silent, yetboth exhibited a most curious twinklesomeness in their eyes. NeitherAunt Hedwig nor Minna could make anything of their strange mood; andAunt Hedwig was put to her trumps completely when she was sure thatshe saw her brother--who was whispering to Herr Sohnstein behind thepie-counter--poke the notary in the ribs. As to the joint chuckle atthat moment of those two mysterious men there could be no doubt; sheheard it distinctly! 14

Still further to Aunt Hedwig's surprise, for the Café Nürnberg neverwas closed before ten o'clock, and usually remained open much later, Gottlieb himself began to put up the shutters; and when this work wasfinished he came back into the shop and locked behind him the doublefront door. Almost as he turned the key there was a knock outside, asthough somebody actually had been waiting in the street for the signalthat the closing of the shutters gave. 

"Another rascal would come in already, Sohn-stein, " said Gottlieb, gruffly. "Open for him, but lock the door again. I must go up-stairs. "

Gottlieb, with a queer smile upon his face, left the little back room;and a moment later Minna uttered a cry of surprise, as Herr Sohnsteinunlocked the door and her own Hans entered the shop. What, she thought, could all these wonders mean? As for Aunt Hedwig, she had sunk down intoher big armchair and her bright black eyes seemed to be fairly startingfrom her head. 

Herr Sohnstein locked the door again, as he had been ordered to do, andthen brought Hans through the shop and into the little back room. Hansevidently was not a party to the mystery, whatever the mystery mightbe. He looked at Minna as wonderingly as she looked at him, and he wasdistressingly ill at ease. But there was no time for either of themto ask questions, for as Hans entered the room from the shop, Gottliebreturned to it. In his hand Gottlieb held the brown old parchment onwhich the lebkuchen recipe was written; the smile had left his face; hewas very pale. For a moment there was an awkward pause. Then Gottlieb, trembling a little as he walked, crossed the room to where Hans stoodand placed the parchment in his hands. And it was in a trembling, brokenvoice that Gottlieb said:

"Hans, a most wicked man have I been. But my dead Minna has helped me, and here I give again to thee what I stole from thy chest--I who was arobber. " Then Gottlieb covered his face with his hands, and presentlyeach of his bony knuckles sparkled with a pendant tear. 

"My own dear father!" said Minna; and her arms were around him, and herhead was pressed close upon his breast. 

"My own good brother, thou couldst not be a thief!" said Aunt Hedwig;and, so saying, clasped her stout arms around them both. 

"My good old friend! all now is right again, " said Herr Sohnstein; whothen affected to put his arms around the three, but really embraced onlyAunt Hedwig. However, there was quite enough of Aunt Hedwig to fill evenHerr Sohnstein's long arms; and he made the average of his one-third ofan embrace all right by bestowing it with a threefold energy. 

The position of Hans as he regarded this affectionately writhing group(that was not unsuggestive of the Laöcoon: with a new motive, a fourthfigure, a commendable addition of draperies, and a conspicuous lack ofserpents) would have been awkward under any circumstances; and as thecircumstances were sufficiently awkward to begin with, he was very muchembarrassed indeed. To Aunt Hed-wig's credit be it said that she was thefirst (after Minna, of course; and Minna could not properly act in thepremises) to perceive his forsaken condition. 

"Come, Hans, " said the good Hedwig, her voice shaken by emotion and thetightness of Herr Sohn-stein's grip about her waist. 

"Thou hadst better come, Hans, " added Herr Sohnstein, jollily. 

"_Wilt_ thou come, Hans--and forgive me?" Gottlieb asked. 

But it was not until Minna said, very faintly, yet with a heavenlysweetness in her voice: "Thou _mayst_ come, Hans!" that Hans actuallycame. 

[Illustration: Thou mayst come, Hans 248]

And then for a while there was such hearty embracing of as much ofthe other four as each of them could grasp that the like of it all forgood-will and lovingness never had been seen in a bakery before. AndGottlieb's good angel exulted greatly; and the devil, who had lingeredabout the premises in the hope that even at the eleventh hour the powersof evil might get the better of the powers of good, acknowledged hisdefeat with a howl of baffled rage: and then fled away in a blue flameand a flash of lightning that made the waters of the East River (whichstream he was compelled to wade, thanks to General Newton, who took awayhis stepping-stones) fairly hiss and bubble. And never did he dare toshow so much as the end of his wicked nose in the Café Nürnberg again!

"But thou wilt not take from me this little one, my daughter, Hans?"Gottlieb asked, when they had somewhat disentangled themselves. "Thouwilt come and live with us, and be my partner, and together we will makethe good lebkuchen once more. Is it not so?"

Hans found this a trying question. He looked at Herr Sohnstein, doubtfully. "Ah, " said Herr Sohnstein, "thou meanest that a veryhard-hearted, money-lending man has hired a shop for thee and has madeit the most splendid bakery and the finest restaurant on all the EastSide, eh? And thou art afraid that this man, this old miser man, willkeep thee to thy bargainings, already?"

Hans gave a deprecating nod of assent. 

"Well, my boy Hans, " Herr Sohnstein continued, with great good-humor, and sliding his arm well around Aunt Hedwig's generous waist again as hespoke--"well, my boy Hans, let me tell thee that that bad old miser manis not one-half so bad as thou wouldst think. Dost thou remember thatwhen he had a garden made upon the roof of that fine bakery, and thoutoldst to him that to make a garden there was to waste his money, whathe said? Did he not say that if he made the garden God would send theflowers? And when that fine sign was made with 'Nürnberger Bäkerei' uponit, and thou toldst to him that to take that name of Nürnberg was notfair to his old friend, did he not tell thee that with his old friendhe would settle that matter so that there should be no broken bones? Fordid he not know already that for these five years past it has been thewish of Gottlieb's heart to leave this old bakery--where his lease endsthis very coming May--and to have just such a new fine bakery upon theSquare as now you two together will have? Ah, this bad old miser man isnot afraid but that his miser money will come back to him again; and heis not such a fool but that he had faith in his good friend Gottlieb, and knew that all would end well. And now, truly, all will be happiness:for Gottlieb, who has gained a good son, can spare to me this dearHed-wig, his sister, and he will come to church with us and see us allmarried in one bright day. "

Aunt Hedwig looked up into Herr Sohnstein's face as he ended this longspeech--not so fine, perhaps, as some of the speeches which he haddelivered in the criminal courts, but much more moving and a great dealmore genuine than the very best of them--and, with her eyes fillingwith happy tears, said to him: "And it is to thee that we owe it, thishappiness!"

But Herr Sohnstein's face grew grave and his voice grew reverent as heanswered: "It is not so, my Hedwig. We owe our happiness to the good Godwho has taken away the evil that was in our dear Gottlieb's heart. " Theyall were very quiet for a little space, and upon the silence broke thesweet sound of the clock bell in the near-by church-tower. 

When the last stroke had sounded Herr Sohnstein spoke again, and in hiscustomary jolly tone: "As for these young ones here, we will unlock thedoor and let them walk out and look for a little at the music-stand thatthey love so well in the Square. And Hedwig shall sit beside me whilewe smoke our pipes, Gottlieb, eh? It is a long time already, old friend, since thou and I have sat together and smoked our pipes. "