"I can not tell the name," rejoined the trader, shrugging his shoulders; "but it is not Hirsch Ehrenthal."
"If I am to believe your words, and if you wish to do me a service," continued Anton, more composedly, "you must give me exact information. I must know this man's name--must know all that you have heard of him and of the baron."
"I have heard nothing," replied the trader, doggedly, "if you wish to examine me as they do in the courts of law. A word that is spoken flies through the air like a scent; one perceives it, another does not. I can not tell you the words I have heard, and I will not tell them for much money. What I say is meant for your ear alone. To you I say that two men have sat together, not one, but many evenings--not one, but many years; and they have whispered in the balcony of our inn, under which the water runs; and the water whispered below them, and they whispered above the water. I lay in the room on my bed of straw, so that they believed I was asleep; and I have often heard the name of Rothsattel from the lips of both, and the name of his estate too; and I know that misfortune hovers over him, but further I know not; and now I have said all, and will go. The good advice I have this day given you will make up for the day when you fought for the wool and the hides; and you will remember the promise you have made me."
Anton was lost in thought. He knew from Bernhard that Ehrenthal was in many ways intimately connected with the baron, and this link between the landed proprietor and the ill-spoken-of speculator had often seemed to him unaccountable. But Tinkeles' story was too incredible, for he had never himself heard any unfavorable account of the baron's circumstances. "I can not," said he, after a long pause, "be satisfied with what you have told me. You will think the matter over, and perhaps you will remember the name, and some of the words you heard."
"Perhaps I may," said the Galician, with a peculiar expression, which Anton in his perplexity quite lost. "And now we have squared our accounts. I have occasioned you anxiety and danger, but, on the other hand, I have done you a service--a great service," he repeated, complacently. "Would you take louis-d'or instead of bank-notes?" asked he, suddenly falling into a business tone; "if so, I can let you have them."