" "No, Mr. Braesig," cried Rudolph, laying his
hand on the old man's shoulder, "no, dear good uncle Braesig, we'll never
get over it; it'll last as long as we live. I want to be a farmer, and
if I have the hope before me of gaining Mina for my wife some day, and
if," he added slyly, "you will help me with your advice, I can't help
becoming a good one." "What a young rascal!" said Braesig to himself,
then aloud: "Ah yes, I know you! You'd be a latin farmer like Pistorius,
and Praetorius, and Trebonius. You'd sit on the edge of a ditch and read
the book written by the fellow with the long string of titles of honor,
I mean the book about oxygen, nitrogen, and organisms, whilst the
farm-boys spread the manure over your rye-field in lumps as big as your
hat. Oh, I know you!
"I've only known one man who took to farming after going through all the
classes at the high-school, who turned out well. I mean young Mr. von
Rambow, Hawermann's pupil." "Oh, uncle Braesig," said Mina, raising her
head slowly and stroking the old man's cheek, "Rudolph can do as well as
Frank." "No, Mina, he _can't_. And shall I tell you why? Because he's
only a gray-hound, while the other is a man." "Uncle Braesig," said
Rudolph, "I suppose you are referring to that silly trick that I played
about the sermon, but you don't know how Godfrey plagued me in his zeal
for converting me. I really couldn't resist playing him a trick.
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