It was your book-keeper Itzig." "He is a villain," cried Bernhard, eagerly, clenching his thin hand.

"He is a man of low nature.

From the first day that he entered our house, I felt a loathing of him as of an unclean beast." "It appears to me," continued Anton, "that Itzig, of whom I knew something in earlier years, is plotting against the baron behind your father's back.

The warning I received was so obscure, I hardly knew what to make of it; however, I could but inform the baron of what had been told me." "That Itzig rules my father," whispered Bernhard.

"He is a demon in our family.