“Yes, let him be, Mina, you’re my little godchild; you’ll soon get over it.”  “No, Mr. Braesig,” cried Rudolph, laying his hand on the old man’s shoulder, “no, dear good uncle Braesig, we’ll never get over it; it’ll last as long as we live.  I want to be a farmer, and if I have the hope before me of gaining Mina for my wife some day, and if,” he added slyly, “you will help me with your advice, I can’t help becoming a good one.”  “What a young rascal!” said Braesig to himself, then aloud:  “Ah yes, I know you!  You’d be a latin farmer like Pistorius, and Praetorius, and Trebonius.  You’d sit on the edge of a ditch and read the book written by the fellow with the long string of titles of honor, I mean the book about oxygen, nitrogen, and organisms, whilst the farm-boys spread the manure over your rye-field in lumps as big as your hat.  Oh, I know you!

“I’ve only known one man who took to farming after going through all the classes at the high-school, who turned out well.  I mean young Mr. von Rambow, Hawermann’s pupil.”  “Oh, uncle Braesig,” said Mina, raising her head slowly and stroking the old man’s cheek, “Rudolph can do as well as Frank.”  “No, Mina, he can’t.  And shall I tell you why?  Because he’s only a gray-hound, while the other is a man.”  “Uncle Braesig,” said Rudolph, “I suppose you are referring to that silly trick that I played about the sermon, but you don’t know how Godfrey plagued me in his zeal for converting me.  I really couldn’t resist playing him a trick.”  “Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Braesig.  “No, I didn’t mean that, I was very much amused at that.  So he wanted to convert you, and perhaps induce you to give up fishing?  He tried his hand at converting again this afternoon, but Lina ran away from him; however that doesn’t matter, it’s all right.”  “With Lina and Godfrey?” asked Mina anxiously.  “And did you hear all that passed on that occasion too?” “Of course I did.  It was for her sake entirely that I hid myself in that confounded cherry-tree.  But now come here, Moshoo Rudolph.  Do you promise never to enter a pulpit again, or to preach another sermon?” “Never again.”  “Do you promise to get up at three o’clock in the morning in summer, and give out the feeds for the horses?” “Punctually.”  “Do you promise to learn how to plough, harrow, mow and bind properly?  I mean to bind with a wisp, there’s no art in doing it with a rope.”  “Yes,” said Rudolph.  “Do you promise when coming home from market never to sit in an inn over a punch-bowl while your carts go on before, so that you are obliged to reel after them?” “I promise never to do so,” said Rudolph.  “Do you promise—­Mina, do you see that pretty flower over there, the blue one I mean, will you bring it to me, I want to smell it—­do you promise,” he repeated as soon as Mina was out of hearing, “never to flirt with any of those confounded farm-girls?” “Oh, Mr. Braesig, do you take me for a scoundrel?” asked Rudolph, turning away angrily.  “No, no,” answered