swept out the bank. Truly he house of Heine Brothers was of no
great importance; but nevertheless it was of good repute.

The office, I have said, was in the Schrannen Platz, or old Market-
place. Munich, as every one knows, is chiefly to be noted as a new
town,--so new that many of the streets and most of the palaces look
as though they had been sent home last night from the builders, and
had only just been taken out of their bandboxes It is angular,
methodical, unfinished, and palatial. But there is an old town;
and, though the old town be not of surpassing interest, it is as
dingy, crooked, intricate, and dark as other old towns in Germany.
Here, in the old Market-place, up one long broad staircase, were
situated the two rooms in which was held the bank of Heine Brothers.

Of the elder member of the firm we shall have something to say
before this story be completed. He was an old bachelor, and was
possessed of a bachelor's dwelling somewhere out in the suburbs of
the city. The junior brother was a married man, with a wife some
twenty years younger than himself, with two daughters, the elder of
whom was now one-and-twenty, and one son. His name was Ernest
Heine, whereas the senior brother was known as Uncle Hatto. Ernest
Heine and his wife inhabited a portion of one of those new palatial
residences at the further end of the Ludwigs Strasse; but not
because they thus lived must it be considered that they were
palatial people. By no means let it be so thought, as such an idea
would altogether militate against whatever truth of character
painting there may be in this tale. They were not palatial people,
but the very reverse, living in homely guise, pursuing homely
duties, and satisfied with homely pleasures. Up two pairs of
stairs, however, in that street of palaces, they lived, having there