[Footnote: See Job xxviii. 17, 18.]

Rose would retort curtly: "What can I buy with your wisdom? Will it
give me wherewith to eat and to drink, and to clothe myself? No!
Very well then, what is the good of it?"

The learned bookbinder would, as a rule, sigh and silently abandon
the argument when it had reached this stage, but at times his
composure would break down under the strain imposed on it. Disputes
and quarrels would ensue, but in the end Kalimann would capitulate,
his conjugal love overcoming his anger and resentment.

Occasionally, however, he would endeavor to escape his wife's
vigilance, and take refuge in a remote corner with one of his
treasured volumes. On one of these "secret" evenings she surprised
him in the poultry house, at his side a small lantern shedding a
doubtful light upon a fine edition of "Hamlet" on his lap. Rose read
him a long lecture, and commanded him to retire at once. The good
man obeyed, but carried "Hamlet" to bed with him, turning once more
to his Shakespeare for refreshment and sweet content. He had
scarcely read half a page, when his spouse rose in all her majesty
and blew out the candle.

Kalimann was desperate, and yet resistance would have been unwise.
Sadly resigned, he turned his head upon the pillow, and soon snored
in unison with Hersch. A half-hour of profound silence, then the
culprit rose, and making sure that his wife was sleeping the sleep
of the just, he cautiously took his book and spectacles, glided out
of doors, and sitting upon the old moss-grown bench in front of the
house, continued the tragedy of the Danish prince by the light of