The proposition was therefore very apropos. "Come a little nearer to the
well; no one knows who may be behind those trees. Now listen; Can you tell
me what is going wrong with Dietrich? He never whistles now, he never
laughs, and his mother looks so sad, and she rarely speaks even to answer
when spoken to. Something has happened to Dietrich."

"Yes, and keeps on happening; all sorts of things, too. But Jost can tell
you more than I can. They sit together in the Rehbock half the night and
more, too; long after everybody else has gone, there they sit in the
little back room. At first they do just as other people do, they drink a
little and then a little more, and Dietrich pays. But that's nothing to
what it costs him afterwards. They do something with paper, he and Jost.
Sometimes it is a lottery and then again something that they call
speculating. I don't understand anything about it. Somebody comes over
from Fohrensee and explains it to them. He does not belong there; but I
guess you have seen him; he has fiery red hair, and red beard and red
face. He has business in Fohrensee once a week, and lives the rest of the
time down in the city; and he arranges everything down there, and then
brings the account of gains and losses up to them; but it's a good deal
more loss than gain. Dietrich puts in more money every time. Jost has
nothing to put in but promises. He tells Dietrich all the time that
presently the winnings will begin to flow in, and says that at first a
fellow must expect to lose, so as to win all the more in the end, and that
bye-and-bye it will all come back; with interest, of course. The
red-haired man says yes to it all. Whenever I want to put something in,
and ask Dietrich to lend me a little to try with, Jost acts as if he were
the lord and master of the whole concern, and 'donkey' is the mildest name
he calls me. I am just waiting though, till I can trip him up, and I'll
do it with a vengeance too, so that he won't forget it all his life long."