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am afraid my father himself will not agree to it. He will not be willing to leave his home." The mayor remarked to the young woman,

father' they keep on saying to him from morning to night: you are quite beside yourself, and you idle away your time instead of helping to support yourself; you do nothing that without doubt her father would much to increase our means, but help to diminish | rather remove to her house than into a prison, them; if you continue to go on in this way you must go to the work-house;' and so they keep on. How often has my father slipped away to me in the evening, to sit quietly and weep over his trouble! How often has he related to me how they give him -the lazy one, as they call him-the worst pieces of the table, and how they have denied him even a drop of wine; and yet all this he would gladly bear, if they would only leave him in peace, and not disturb him with their foolish questions, and their ridicule, and their stolen visits to his room, where they delight in destroying what he has just begun to prepare." "Have you any idea what the extraordinary old gentleman is making?"

"No, your worship; I am only an ignorant woman. My father talks in a sort of mysterious way about what he is engaged in, but still he continually prophesies great good luck for us all if his work succeeds. I do not know whether he is animated by a just confidence in success, or whether he is led away by some lamentable error; but I would gladly thrust my hand into the fire to free him from the persecution he undergoes at present." "Would you take your father home to live with you if it were so decided?”

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"I should then be obliged to do so, but it is my duty to do so without any obligation." Suppose I were to make your father over to you for a few weeks, till it could be found out, by kindly and carefully observing him, what is really the state of his mind?"

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He would be heartily welcome to share the little we have, for we are but poor people, and in our little quiet house he would have leisure to compose himself. I will pray God most earnestly on my knees to preserve the dear man from melancholy and insanity."

"Would your husband be satisfied with such an arrangement?" asked the mayor, smiling. The tailor's wife smiled also, in the proud consciousness of having the upper hand at home, and answered: "When I promise anything, your worship, it is the same as if my husband had taken his oath of it; but I

and ordered this mysterious being to be
brought before him again. But Peter Hele
was already in the ante-room, with a little
bag in his hand, and said, on entering the
mayor's presence: " See, your worship, what
your exhortation has been the cause of. They
have turned me out of my house-out of my
own house. They have told me I may go to
the work-house or to prison; and they say
that I am both foolish and wicked for having
blackened their characters to the mayor, and
told him that they behave to me in an un-
christianlike manner. So I have brought with
me what they have left me of my working
tools and materials, and gladly give myself
into your honor's custody.
But what are you
doing here, my daughter?"

"She will take you to live with her till I have accommodated things for you," said the mayor.

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into your poor little home? Do you recollect that your husband must set ten thousand stitches the more every week, in order to support such a guest as I?"

"That is nothing to you, father; you will be with your own affectionate children!" cried the old man's daughter with energy, and taking him by the arm. "Come, come," she said, "you shall not be disturbed, nor left to starve, that I promise his honor and you."

"But how can you," said the mayor to Peter Hele-" how can you thus give the control of your affairs without consideration into the hands of others, and take with you instead only this rubbish?" As he said this, he pointed to the bag. The old man's tears stopped suddenly, and he answered with a half-angry tone:

"Rubbish! Ah! honored sir, this rubbish would produce a golden crop, if I could but use the present time as I wish. Time is the treasure with which I work. The hour draws near at which my time will be run out. Very well, then, my daughter, the certainty that I shall make our fortunes, makes me consent to become your guest. I shall be able to repay

you for all to make all good to you; and the certainty of this golden future is the cause of my leaving my own house with joy, and giving everything up to my covetous sons."

As the old man now left the court, holding his daughter by the arm, and full of animated gestures and boasting promises, the mayor shook his head, and said to himself: "How am I to find out the truth of this business? In my turn, I also begin to doubt the old man's sanity."

A fortnight after this had scarcely expired when the head constable appeared before the mayor, bringing Peter Hele:

"This man," said he, "has unmercifully beaten his son-in-law's apprentice, quite unjustly, and without any cause whatever. He seems to have done it out of pure malice, and I hope you will send him to prison for a few days to cool his temper." There stood Master Peter again, with his little bag in his hand, and to the strict inquiry into his conduct made by the mayor, he answered with a melancholy

smile :

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See, your honor, what your accommodating of matters has done! There is not a better-hearted man than my son-in-law; but it is well known that no man is more inquisitive than a tailor. He has watched me, and listened at my door; and he stole in at my window like a cat to examine my things, in order to become possessed of my secret, and now he declares that I am a sorcerer. My daughter always took part against him, and did not wish me to leave the house; but her husband's curiosity and suspicions, and his continual ill humor because he could not get me out of the house, were very disagreeable to me. I beat the boy, who is his master's favorite, without any provocation, but in order to put an end to the strife between the married people, and to gain peace for myself. I am sorry I was obliged to beat him; but could think of no other means of obtaining for a short time a quiet lodging without cost. The boy is young, too, and will have got over his blows by to-morrow." The mayor shook his head again.

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Why, really, Peter," said he, "you must be out of your wits. This time you will have to enjoy the prison you have longed for so

much, if you are not able to pay a fine for your offence."

"I am a poor fellow," said Peter, good humoredly, "and beg only to be shut up by myself in some light little room, with leave to tinker and rattle as much as I please with these playthings of mine." He pointed to the bag with his apparatus.

"It is granted you," said the mayor. "You will remain there one month quite solitary. I promise you, you will be troubled by visits from no one but the jailor."

Master Peter went with the highest satisfaction where others generally go with great discontent. The mayor ordered that no one should be allowed to go near him, but that everything should be got for him he wanted for his mysterious work. The lightest rooms

were allotted to him, and forbidden to every other prisoner. In the meantime, the mayor so ordered it, that the day on which the case of the wife and sons was to be finally heard should be postponed until the end of Peter's imprisonment.

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When the members of the municipal council assembled to hear the complaint of Peter's family, the wife repeated her first statement word for word, and the eldest son held a long and violent discourse, which ended with the prayer that, as his father had neglected all his duties, he might be deprived of his rights in the household. Really," cried the blustering young man, "if his silly way of going on, his senseless mysteries, and his neglect of all the commands of God as the father of a family, are not enough, pray remember that he has also striven to get himself into prison, which can only be the act of a madman, and so we need say nothing further."

Most of the councilmen nodded their heads at each other, and thought the affair was at an end, and that the crazy brazier was only fit for the mad-house, for the Christmas holidays were near at hand, and the respectable gentlemen wished to be rid of business. The affair was just about to be put to the vote, therefore, when the mayor turned to Mrs. Willibald, and asked her if she concurred in the wish of her brother. The good daughter opposed it most warmly.

"God guard your honors' consciences," she cried, "from such a decision.

I am

afraid you have the intention of making one of your best citizens dead to all temporal interests. I deny my father's insanity as fearlessly as if my salvation depended upon it. If my husband were not a timid, superstitious man, and if he were not irritated by his brothers-in-law-who, alas! are my own brothers-the mischief would not have gone so far, and my father would not be in prison; but he would, on the contrary, be here present, supported by us, for the purpose of silencing his accusers, and making them repent of the gross ingratitude and inhumanity with which they drove him out of doors to starve."

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You lie, you faithless sister!" burst forth the young men.

"You give false witness!" screamed the mother. "Is it our fault that he ran away from the house, because he was frightened at our mild charge against him, although he had so shamefully calumniated us, and basely forsook us to go and settle himself by the side of the ill-advised one who had helped to set him against his and her own blood?"

"Our sister thought to get all my father has, and all his pretended future riches for herself; but she is mistaken, for now let us hear what her husband has to say," cried the

elder brother.

The person called, a meagre little man with a trembling voice, tried to support his brotherin-law by telling of the foolish things done by the old man, and of his unbearable conduct, and concluded by protesting, crossing himself the while, that once when he went into his room he had there heard the devil, though he certainly had not seen him.

"Satan himself, the real Satan?" cried the councilmen, and the uproar became great.

The tailor's wife darted at him a look which frightened him; but nevertheless he went on in a trembling voice to say: "Yes, wife, look at me-look at me as you will, it must come out, although you have forbidden me to say it. But certain and true it is, that on the old man's table, amongst a lot of rubbish, of brass pegs and pins, and little wheels and catgut strings, there lay a wooden ball, or something of the kind, within which there was a clicking and clapping going on, as if there was an animal at work there. I shuddered as I listened to it; then suddenly it

came into my heart that the devil assumes all sorts of shapes, and springing away, I dashed the ball against the wall. Whether it broke or not, I don't know, for I did not look round. Once afterwards, however, when my wife had given me a good scolding for my folly, I took fresh heart and went again into the room, but no traces of the ball were to be seen."

The sons thought to strengthen their own statement by the nonsense the tailor had just been uttering, and a great number of the council were inclined to give credit to it; but Peter Hele's daughter, crying with vexation and distress, turned angrily to her husband:

"O you dishonorable, wicked man," said she, "do you want to bring the best father in the world to the rack, or to be burned? Sad is it for me and all kind-hearted people to see so much suffering heaped upon the poor man's head, without being able to say a word to help or justify him."

"Who tells you that, young woman?" said the mayor, pulling the bell as he spoke. "The gentlemen of this council are all too just to condemn a townsman unheard."

Perhaps this decided speech made the councilmen feel ashamed of appearing to wish to decide upon the case in haste, a thing which is never becoming in judges and gray heads. In the meantime, a side door opened, and Peter Hele came forward, a wasted, exhausted figure, with an innocent, cheerful but submissive expression of face. Still there was to be seen round his finely cut mouth an expression of deep pain. The daughter gave a cry of joy, but the mother, the sons, and the son-in-law looked frightened, and cast their eyes on the ground.

"Have you heard what your relations have alleged against you as matter of complaint?” asked the mayor.

"I wish I had not been obliged to hear it," answered the good man, coughing in order to hide his tears; "but I know they will be sorry for what they have said, and so I shall gladly forget everything. Unmerited calumny is more easily forgiven than that which is merited; and if there still should remain in the heart of a father and a citizen, like myself, some remembrance of the pain I have felt, it will be caused only by the regret that a fifty years' life of simplicity, honesty in my calling,

of mind might reasonably make me seem disagreeable, and to all appearance half-crazy; and the tormenting spirit, the artifice and the reproaches of my family, nearly drove me mad in reality."

The old man here stopped to breathe more freely and relieve the oppression at his heart. His daughter threw her arms affectionately and comfortingly round him, in recognition of which he stroked her forehead and cheeks with his hand, while the wife hid her face in her handkerchief and sobbed, and the sons knew not which way to look for shame.

piety towards God, and love for my wife and through Germany, Holland, France and Engchildren, have not been sufficient surety for land, with his little clock, and seek for cusmy honest intentions and my sane state of tomers, and then he was to return in a year mind. But now, gentlemen, as the time has for the clocks I should have made, and supply arrived, I will tell you honestly what I had in his customers with them. It was a thoughtmy head, and what gave rise to so much mis- less agreement on my part! The time flew understanding. It is not unknown to you, away faster than I expected, and my doubts gentlemen, that from my youth forward I have as to whether I should be able to keep my ever pursued the wonderful and beautiful promise increased from day to day, and with science of mechanics. When on my travels my doubts my anxiety increased tenfold. The for the purpose of improvement, I made ac-stated time drew nearer and nearer to a close, quaintance, in Florence, with the clever sil- and nothing was yet done. My secret trouble versmith, Jessada, and learned many secrets from him which were of great advantage to me in my handiwork; and I have always been friendly with him to this day. When, some years after this, I had settled myself down, and taken a wife, and had become the father of a family, and in the struggles of every day of life had forgotten all about Italy, the said Jessada appeared suddenly in this town, and came to my house, and told me that he came to make a proposal to me. He related to me that, in his native town, there was a certain very wise and clever man, to whom it had occurred to invent a kind of machine which should show the time, like a clock, only of so small a size that any person could carry it in his pocket, and always have it with him, without any inconvenience whatever. The man, he said, had made some of these chronometers, and had then died; but very few of them had been distributed, because the price was so enormous. Jessada, being in possession "It may perhaps be asked, why I opened of this work of art, determined to bring the my heart to nobody during so long a time, not invention into Germany: thinking Nurem-even to my own family. To this I must anburg the most likely place, and I the most likely handicraftsman to carry out his design. Being desirous of leaving to these children, two of whom have represented me as insane," (here the poor man's voice was lost in distress and tears) "being desirous of leaving them a respectable fortune, and of rendering a service to mankind, I hastily accepted the proposal of the Florentine; and after having examined the little portable clock as much as was possible without injuring it, I offered, with good courage, and a lively faith in God's help, to imitate the invention, and to improve it where it might be necessary. We then came to the following agreement: I was to set to work, and Jesseda was, in the meantime, to travel

"Give this good old man a chair that he may rest himself," said the mayor, The coun. cilmen murmured among each other, some expressing pity, some wonder.

After a short interruption, quiet was restored; Peter Hele again rose, and with a cheerful and composed, but thoughtful countenance, proceded as follows:

swer-and to the praise of our native town be it said-that there are thousands of cleverer men than I in Nuremberg, and that one single word to one of these would have been sufficient to discover my secret, and, as the saying goes, to drive the goats into another pen. I was therefore obliged to be silent amongst my neighbors and friends, and it was not the less necessary to be silent with my wife, for women's ears are ever open, and their tongues never still. I was equally obliged to keep everything from my sons, for neither of them has a shadow of taste or talent for mechanics or mathematics, and they would never have been able to understand what I was about. When I had completed my undertaking, there

The wise Florentine, and I, in imitation of of him, have taken the hours prisoner. In a little while, every man will be lord and master of time, and will be able to calculate when the sun and moon change place, when the planets rise and set, and how the mysterious zodiac rules the course of our globe. The clock will be to every man as a conscience which points out to him the lost, the gained, or the well employed hours. It will be the comfort of every one, for it will enable us to count the fleeting moments of happiness, and with fortitude to reckon the heavy-winged

fore, it would be time to make them useful which we could not exist; namely, Time. assistants in my work; and the fame was sure to remain to them an almost certain inheritance, for posterity readily gives up those who are gone for those who are present. You see, gentlemen, how necessary it was for me to keep my secret; so do not seek an evidence of madness in my obstinate mysteriousness, or in the act of my leaving my daughter's house and getting into prison. The inquisitive tailor destroyed the little clock I had put just together. I found the work of many toilsome days and nights in atoms. What was there any longer to hope in a house like this? Like the first recluses in the desert, I put my-hours of misfortune, which, though they apself into a little cell. There-God's name be praised !—an invisible angel assisted me with its power, and not only enabled me to renew what the tailor had destroyed, but to make further improvements in my work. In short, gentlemen, my confident hope has not been disappointed, and God has permitted me to complete my design, and Jessada may come as soon as he pleases. The time-keeper is ready; and whilst that invented by the Florentine goes only twelve hours, and is then down, mine continues to go and to strike forty hours without any trouble."

Hele put his hand into his breast, and pulled out the little so-called "Nuremberg Egg," the first of the name. All eyes were fixed in astonishment on the little master-piece of science, which at that moment, in clear and delicate strokes, struck the hour of noon, and, like the wood-worm, constantly ticking, accompanied the time as it flew. The councilmen sprang from their seats; the inventor of the wonderful piece of art was admitted upon the bench; and there, in the midst of the circle formed around him by the mayor and the rest of the council, he proceeded to point out and explain the different minute parts of his work.

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pear to us to be stationary, pass on, through
God's mercy, like the rest. Upon this time-
keeper, the sufferer can calculate the period of
his recovery, the prisoner the hour of his re-
lease, and the dying the hour of his admission
into Paradise. The priest will not forget the
hour of prayer, nor the judge the hour which
calls him to his duty, and the many cruel
moments of suspense experienced by one ac-
cused, when awaiting the judgment”-
Here the unanimous voices of the council in-
terrupted Peter Hele.

"Go forth, noble old man," cried they, "an ornament as you are to our excellent town! Go to your own home attended by the praises and blessings of your own townsmen, and long may you live to the profit and honor of the place which gave you birth. Were you not so kind a father, we would open the doors of your prison to receive those who would have sent you to a madhouse; but for your sake they shall be forgiven, and left to their own shame for punishment."

The ingenious and talented artificer was accompanied to his own home like a victor. Like the Sophocles of old, he had been obliged to exhibit his own work in order to save the honor of his genius; but whilst the Grecian poet may have awakened the spirit of the Furies in the breasts of his ungrateful children during the reading of his tragedy, the sons of Peter Hele felt only the paltry regret of the vanquished, and simply reproached themselves for having considerably postponed through their own fault, the profits of a lucrative speculation. The father forgave them from his heart, but the sons loved him no better than

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