should not know what must be recorded in the books of the house; but
Casper Eysvogel needed this capital to silence the Jew Pfefferkorn, from
whom he had secretly borrowed large sums to conceal the heavy losses
sustained in Venice the year before at the gaming table.

At first courteously, then with rising anger, he evaded the questions
of the business man, and his manner of doing so, with the little
contradictions in which the arrogant man, unaccustomed to falsehood,
involved himself, showed Herr Ernst that all was not as it should be.

By the time they reached the Frauenthor, he had told Casper Eysvogel
positively that he would not fulfil the request until Wolff was informed
of the matter.

Then the sorely pressed man perceived that nothing but a frank confession
could lead him to his goal. But what an advantage it would give his
companion, what a humiliation it would impose upon himself! He could not
force his lips to utter it, but resolved to venture a last essay by
appealing to the father, instead of to the business man; and therefore,
with the haughty, condescending manner natural to him, he asked Herr
Ernst, as if it were his final word, whether he had considered that his
refusal of a request, which twenty other men would deem it an honour to
fulfil, might give their relations a form very undesirable both to his
daughter and himself?

"No, I did not suppose that a necessity," replied his companion firmly,
and then added in an irritated tone: "But if you need the loan so much
that you require for your son a father-in-law who will advance it to you
more readily, why, then, Herr Casper--"