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106 ing recipient with such pathos that Mendel was completely overcome. Placing twenty kreutzers on the table, the happy swain begged the clerk to write as finely turned a letter to Gutel as the one she had sent him.

Saul, who had at a glance recognized Kalimann's calligraphy, said to himself: "It will go hard with me but I will show the bookbinder that they know how to write letters at Gyöngös, and can also quote from the classic authors."

He at once wrote Gutel a missive so thickly interlarded with quotations from the Song of Solomon, from Goethe, Petöfi, Heine, and Chateaubriand, that when Kalimann read the billet-doux to the blushing girl her head was quite turned.

The bookbinder himself scratched his head and muttered: "This Saul is a man of letters; his style is vigorous! Who would have thought it?"

The correspondence between Gutel and Mendel, or rather between Kalimann and Saul, flourished for some time. If Kalimann addressed Mendel as "my cherished friend," "my turtle dove," Saul on his side would intersperse throughout his letters such expressions as "your gazelle-like eyes," "your fairy form," "your crimson lips," "your voice rivalling the music of the celestial spheres."

Kalimann's "friendly" letter was followed by