On the following morning the rumor spread all over Nuremberg, that Palm, the bookseller, had returned and was concealed in his house.
The cook had stated this in the strictest confidence to some of her friends when she had appeared on the market-place to purchase some vegetables. The friends had communicated the news, of course, likewise in the strictest confidence, to other persons, and thus the whole city became very soon aware of the secret.
The friends of the family now hastened to go to Mrs. Palm for the purpose of ascertaining from herself whether the information were true. Anna denied it, however; she asserted she had received this very morning a letter written by her husband at Erlangen; but when one of the more importunate friends requested her to communicate the contents of the letter to him, or let him see it at least, she became embarrassed and made an evasive reply.
"He is here!" whispered the friends to each other, when they left Mrs. Anna Palm. "He is here, but conceals himself so that the French spies who have been sneaking around here for the last few days may not discover his whereabouts. It is prudent for him to do so, and we will not betray him, but faithfully keep his secret."
But a secret of which a whole city is aware, and which is being talked of by all the gossips in town, is difficult to keep, and it is useless to make any effort for the purpose of preventing it from being betrayed to the enemy.
Palm did not suspect any thing whatever of what was going on. He deemed himself entirely safe in his wife's peaceful, silent room, the windows of which, opening upon the garden, were inaccessible to spying eyes, while its only door led to the large store where his two clerks were attending to the business of the firm and waiting on the customers who ordered or purchased books of them.
Anna had just left the room to consult with her servants about the affairs of the household and kitchen; and Palm, who was comfortably stretched out on the sofa, was engaged in reading. The anxiety which had rendered him so restless during the previous days had left him again; he felt perfectly reassured, and smiled at his own fear which had flitted past him like a threatening cloud.
All at once he was startled from his comfortable repose by a loud conversation in the store, and rose from the divan in order to hear what was the matter.
"I tell you I am unable to assist you," he heard his book-keeper say. "I am poor myself, and Mr. Palm is not at home."
"Mr. Palm is at home, and I implore you let me see him," said a strange, supplicating voice. "He has a generous heart and if I tell him of my distress he will pity me and lend me his assistance."
"Come back in a few days, then," exclaimed the book-keeper; "Mr. Palm will then be back, perhaps, from his journey."
"In a few days!" ejaculated the strange voice--"in a few days my wife and child will be starved to death, for unless I am able to procure relief within this hour, my cruel creditor will have me taken to the debtors' prison, and I shall be unable then to assist my sick wife and baby. Oh, have mercy on my distress! Let me see Mr. Palm, that I may implore his assistance!"
"Mr. Palm is not at home as I told you already," exclaimed the book- keeper in an angry voice. "How am I to let you see him, then? Come back in a few days--that is the only advice I can give you. Go now, and do not disturb me any longer!"
"No, people shall never say that I turned a despairing man away from my door," muttered Palm, rapidly crossing the room and opening the door of the store.
"Stay, poor man," he said to the beggar, who had already turned around and was about to leave the store--"stay."
The beggar turned around, and, on perceiving Palm, who stood on the threshold of the door, uttered a joyful cry.
"Do you see," he said, triumphantly to the book-keeper--" do you see that I was right? Mr. Palm is at home, and will help me."
"I will help you if I can," said Palm, kindly. "What does your debt amount to?"
"Ah, Mr. Palm, I owe my landlord a quarter's rent, amounting to twenty florins. But if you should be so generous as to give me half that sum, it would be enough, for the landlord has promised to wait three months, provided I paid him now ten florins."
"You shall have the ten florins," said Palm. "Mr. Bertram, pay this man ten florins, and charge them to me."
"Oh, Mr. Palm, how kind you are!" exclaimed the beggar, joyfully.
"How shall I ever be able to thank you for what you have done for me to-day?"
"Thank me by being industrious and making timely provision for your wife and child, in order not to be again reduced to such distress," said Palm, nodding kindly to the stranger, and returning to the adjoining room.
With the ten florins which the book-keeper had paid to him, the beggar hastened into the street. No sooner had he left the threshold of Palm's house than the melancholy and despairing air disappeared from his face, which now assumed a scornful and malicious mien. With hasty steps he hurried over to St. Sebald's church, to the pillar yonder, behind which two men, wrapped in their cloaks, were to be seen.
"Mr. Palm is at home," said the beggar, grinning. "Go into the store, cross it and enter the adjoining sitting-room--there you will find him. I have spied it out for you, and now give me my pay."
"First we must know whether you have told us the truth," said one of the men. "It may be all false."