"
"You did not understand me just now,--pay attention to what I am saying.
There are two ways of asking a question: either to obtain information,
or simply from idle curiosity, which is foolishness. Now pay attention,
Rico: is this a mere idle question, or did somebody send you who wishes
to buy a fiddle?"
"I want to buy one myself," said the boy, taking courage a little;
but he was frightened when the angry reply came, "What! what did you
say? A forlorn little fellow like you buy a fiddle! Do you even know
what the instrument is? Have you any idea of how old I was, and what
I knew, before I obtained one? I was a teacher, a regular teacher;
was twenty-two years old, with an assured profession, and not a
child like you.
"Now I will tell you what a fiddle costs, and then you will see how
foolish you are. Six hard gulden I paid for mine. Can you realize what
that means? We will separate it into blutsgers. If one gulden contains a
hundred blutsgers, then six guldens will be equal to six times one
hundred,--quickly, quickly! Now, Rico, you are generally ready enough."
"Six hundred blutsgers," said the lad softly, for he was quite
overpowered with the magnitude of this sum as compared with Stineli's
twelve blutsgers.
"And, moreover, my son, do you imagine that you have only to take a
fiddle in your hand to be able to play on it at once? It takes a long
time to do that.
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