Breathless, dirty, pale as whitewash, he
gasped a threat to be heard from again, and, getting round the corner as
quick as he could walk, left Kristian Koppig, standing motionless, the
most astonished man in that street.
"Kristian Koppig, Kristian Koppig," said Greatheart to himself, slowly
dragging up-stairs, "what a mischief you have done. One poor woman
certainly to be robbed of her bitter wages, and another--so lovely!--put
to the burning shame of being the subject of a street brawl! What will
this silly neighborhood say? 'Has the gentleman a heart as well as a
hand?' 'Is it jealousy?'" There he paused, afraid himself to answer the
supposed query; and then--"Oh! Kristian Koppig, you have been such a
dunce!" "And I cannot apologize to them. Who in this street would carry
my note, and not wink and grin over it with low surmises? I cannot even
make restitution. Money? They would not dare receive it. Oh! Kristian
Koppig, why did you not mind your own business? Is she any thing to you?
Do you love her? _Of course not_! Oh!--such a dunce!"
The reader will eagerly admit that however faulty this young man's
course of reasoning, his conclusion was correct.
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