Good-morning, Burgher Jans." "Good-morning, most worthy lady," said the little fat man, accepting his dismissal and bowing himself out.
"The ill-natured little manoeuvrer!" exclaimed Madame Dort, half to herself, as he left the room.

Lorischen entered again at the same time, the two always playing the game apparently of one of those old-fashioned weather tellers, in which a male or female figure respectively comes out from the little rustic cottage whenever it is going to be wet or fine; for, as surely as the Burgher ever entered the sitting-room, the old nurse withdrew, never returning until he had left.

"The ill-natured little manoeuvrer!" exclaimed Madame Dort, not thinking she was overheard.

"I believe he would be glad to keep poor Fritz away if he could." "Just what I've thought all along!" said Lorischen, immensely pleased at this acknowledgment of her superior power of discernment.
"I mean, not on account of wishing any harm to Fritz," explained the widow, "but that he himself might be able to come here oftener." "Just what I've said!" chirped out the old nurse triumphantly; but Madame Dort made no reply to this second thrust, and before Lorischen could say anything further, a second visitor came to the little house in the Gulden Strasse.

It seemed fated as if that was to be a day for callers, and "people who had no business to do preventing those who had," as the old nurse grumbled while on her way to open the street door for the new-comer--a courtesy Burgher Jans never required, walking in, as she said, without asking leave or license, just when he pleased! The visitor was Herr Grosschnapper, the merchant who employed Fritz in his counting-house and who was also a part proprietor in the ship in which Eric had sailed for Java.